2 - Tales from the Cosmic Carnival

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

1. THE STORY OF BERKO

"We want to go home to our world too, children," Optimus Prime said, gently. "But sometimes you have duties elsewhere and you can't. Except in Berko's case - he chooses not to go home. Isn't that right, Berko?"

"Earth never did me any good. Why should I want to go back to that dust-ball?! I had no family, no friends. No-one ever gave me a job worth keeping! I was broke and living alone, which suited me just fine! Then one night, around ten years ago, I was alone in the forest, cooking sausages on a camp fire next to my old van, when a beam of light hit me and zapped me aboard this flying road show! I figured it to be an alien invasion, until I realised I was the only one they'd taken. The Cosmic Carnival lets you know it's coming when it's open for business, but when it's 'recruiting new talent', it operates in ultra-stealth mode. They picked me because I was the most isolated human being on the planet on the day they did their initial survey. They reckoned it would take a while before anyone missed me. And for all I know, nobody ever did! They beamed my van and tent up after me, leaving no trace behind of Bert Coe, the human failure.

"At first I was just another miserable sideshow freak in a cage. They fed me well... mostly replicated sausages, until I managed to explain to them that humans did sometimes eat other things... and they let me keep my stuff. It was weird - I wasn't scared. Without any other humans on board, I felt as alone in my cage as I had in the forest. The bug-eyed aliens staring in at me were just more forest critters as far as I was concerned. As long as I didn't have to interact with people any more, I counted myself happy.

"But then, more out of boredom than anything else, I began co-operating, doing tricks... mime, mimicry, whistling, combat yodelling, often just making silly faces at the visitors. Big Top appreciated that, particularly as his bosses, the Cosmic Carnival's unseen owners, had realised that humans and related humanoid species were a fairly big deal in this galaxy, and wanted to make more out of me. In exchange for my continuing to perform, and telling him all about Earth, Big Top made me a trustee. He made me boss of the sideshow, and together we redesigned this place, using Earth circuses, as I remember them from my childhood, as a source of inspiration.

"Then, when we snagged those kids, they took my place in the cage. And as long as they're in there, I don't have to be! This is the best deal anyone's ever cut me! And I ain't gonna blow it for you or anyone else, bucket-head! So get lost!"

"I can take you back to Earth, too," said Optimus Prime.

"What?! Me?! But why would you- Haven't you been listening to a word I've said? I was a misfit, a loner! I didn't belong in Earth society."

"But you're no longer that person. If you were, you'd still be in that cage, refusing to interact with anyone. But by interacting with the aliens, you've learnt the skills you need to interact with people. You have so much to teach your own kind, and I assure you, I have been listening to everything you've said. Your words are edged with sadness. It is not too late to do something meaningful with your life. Trust me."

"I've... always managed by myself. No-one's ever offered to help me before..."

"Don't knock it till you try it," said Goldbug.

"Maybe... you're right. Goldbug, you and I will see to the kids. You, Optimus, go to the arena and get Sky Lynx. His next show begins in three minutes."

"I don't understand," said Optimus.

"It's your turn to trust me."

"Things might turn ugly," Goldbug whispered to Optimus. "If we have to fight our way out, I'm unarmed."

"Here," said Optimus. "Take this Powermaster torch, given to me by HiQ. It should enable you to incapacitate any carbon-based opponents without causing them permanent sensory damage. Good luck!"

"Thanks..."

NEXT: THE STORY OF MR BIG TOP

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

2. THE STORY OF MR BIG TOP

"Ladies and gentlethings, creatures of all ages! Welcome to the greatest show in the Galaxy - the Cosmic Carnival! May I direct your attention to high above the centre ring, as I present the star of our show, the automated airborne artiste without equal - Sky Lynx! And... well, well, well... what do we have here? For one night only, I see we have a special guest star, leaping from the audience - back from the dead, that champion of sentient beings' freedom - Optimus Prime! Give him a big hand, folks, although, as you can see, he already has two...

"Watch in amazement as Op calculates his angle of ascent to take advantage of the zero gravity along the Cosmic Carnival's central axis! Gaze in admiration as he transforms into a red cube on wheels! (Don't we all wish we could do that?) Gasp in fear for Op's life as he floats downward, falling faster as he approaches the arena floor, where gravity takes hold! Experience your eyes popping off their eye-stalks as Sky Lynx transforms from dragon to puma mode! (Wonder, as I always do, where his top half goes when he does that!) And wave your pseudopods in the air as he lands on Op and uses his rocket thrusters to bring them both to a controlled landing! Optimus Prime lives! Isn't that... marvellous!

"Excuse me a moment while I adjust my universal translator. (Stop them! Don't let them escape!) Ladies and gentlethings, murmur with mild disapproval as Op and Sky make a mess of the arena props and furniture! Applaud as Garry the Gilashark steps in to chide the Autobots and moderate their reckless high spirits! 'Ooh!' and 'Ah!' at the bright sparkly colours made by the flashy fireworks of Violen the Juggler, and then... er... oh, yes, that's right... it's all in the script, folks... Go wild as Rorza the Rocket Cycle Racer from Rigel Three comes within inches of Op, and then rides up the back of Sky Lynx's space shuttle mode, to land, with an accuracy surely born of hours of careful rehearsal, upside-down and hanging off the door of Sky Lynx's suspended cage. And, despite his fall from a great, great height, Garry the Gilashark lives! See, all our performers rise and take a bow! Give them a big cheer! Now, excuse me, I must teleport to the sideshow to resolve a minor disturbance that has just been reported to me... Thank you all for coming! Thank you, thank you!"

NEXT: THE STORY OF OLLIE

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

3. THE STORY OF OLLIE

"It's okay, Ollie. Mr Big Top is expecting us."

"Uh-huh."

- Marvel's Transformers #44
___

Ollie was a henchthing of few words, and he was momentarily lost for all of them when he finally found Mr Big Top locked inside a booby-trapped cage somewhere in the Cosmic Carnival's labyrinthine sideshow.

"Whatcha doin' in there, boss?" he enquired, after a pause for lumbering thought.

Big Top made a burbling noise.

The cogs in Ollie's brain creaked slowly, but eventually led him to look down, raise his heavy right foot, and discover the flattened remains of Big Top's universal translator, well trodden by the jostling crowds. He raised the left foot, and found what might once have been Big Top's teleportation controller - not that it would have done him much good inside an electrically charged cell, even if he still had it intact in his possession.

("Ha ha, isn't that the stupidest-looking creature, honeyslug?")

("Now, now, dear - you shouldn't make fun of those less fortunate than us.")

Ollie pondered the cell, and came to the slow realisation that it was the one that had recently been occupied by those four human children brought on board by the Autobot Sky Lynx, several months earlier. Stupid Transformer, Ollie had thought at the time. He clearly had a poor understanding of carbon-based societal hierarchies. Yes, he had seemed protective of his four small charges, to the point of agreeing to perform in the Cosmic Carnival in order to ensure their safety, but he should never have acceded to their request to bring them here, into harm's way, in the first place. It was almost as if he didn't fully understand what children were. It was almost as if he didn't know there were such things as human grown-ups... such things as parents.

Ollie understood what children were. He had fifty-six himself, by his last count. He had therefore made a point of gently interrogating Allan, Jed, Robin and Sammy as to their family circumstances. He slowly established that their parents most likely thought them dead, caught in the crossfire between the giant Transformers, Bruticus and Defensor. He knew how that would make him feel as a parent, and imagined how much worse it would be if he only had one or two, rather than fifty-six.

Ollie arranged for the children to make a video showing that they were alive, unharmed and well treated, appended an English-language copy of the contract signed by them and Sky Lynx, and paid a courier to deliver the package to their home addresses on Earth.

It seemed that the children and Sky Lynx had now finally escaped from the Cosmic Carnival. Good, thought Ollie. Their parents would no doubt be pleased to have them returned, far sooner than the contract would have given them hope to expect.

Big Top burbled angrily.

Ollie shrugged his shoulders, pointed at his ear and shook his head, then lumbered off to report these developments to the Cosmic Carnival's owners.

Eventually.

NEXT: THE STORY OF RORZA THE ROCKET CYCLE RACER

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

4. THE STORY OF RORZA THE ROCKET CYCLE RACER

"Only a fool ignores Rorza the Rocket Cycle Racer from Rigel Three! I'll cut you in two, you ponderous oaf!"

- Marvel's Transformers #44
___

According to the Marvel Database, the Rigellians were a race of space colonisers. Threatened by the expansion of the Black Galaxy and Ego's attacks, they sought new worlds to colonise, ready for when they had to leave their home planet. A Rigellian coloniser, Tana Nile, tried to take control of Earth, but was not taken seriously by the authorities (Thor #129-131).

Later, when the Black Stars set out for their home planet, Rigel Three, all Rigellians fled it in a desperate attempt to survive. Thor arrived and rescued the Rigellian mutants who had been left to die by the normal Rigellians. Not long after Rigel Three had been fully evacuated, the Black Stars destroyed it (Thor #218).

Psionic abilities allow the Rigellians to control other humanoids' minds or overpower the bodies of other humanoids. They can also alter their physical density, thereby granting themselves superhuman strength. Their technology includes advanced, warp-driven starships, manipulation of subatomic particles, teleportation, robotics, the ability to move planets via tractor beams and space warps, and, apparently, rocket cycles that, they claim, are capable of cutting ponderous oafs such as Optimus Prime in two, assuming that the ponderous oafs in question don't dodge to one side at the last moment, causing the rocket cycle to ride up the nosecone of an oncoming space shuttle and end up hanging upside-down from the bars of a conveniently waiting cage suspended high above the ground.

The Rigellian Recorders are a race of robots created by the Rigellians for the purpose of exploring new territory and reporting back to the Rigellians. Recorders are also used by various cosmic entities. For example, Recorder 211 lived at Uatu the Watcher's home in the Blue Area of the Moon, and recorded the events of the death of the X-Man, Jean Grey, whilst possessed by the Phoenix Force (X-Men #136-137).

Recorder 211 later accompanied the Asgardian hero, Thor, on a mission to the Black Galaxy to find Ego the Living Planet. The Recorder performed well, gathering such an unprecedented amount of rare data, including witnessing Thor's struggle against Mangog, that the Rigellian Grand Commissioner permitted it to retain its artificial memories rather than having them erased. Its arguing with the Asgardian showed that it had transcended its programming, making it a truly sentient being (Thor #132).

[End of text adapted from the Marvel Database.]

Like all self-respecting Rigellians of note, Rorza the Rocket Cycle Racer possessed a Recorder, specifically Recorder 922. This Recorder witnessed Rorza's humiliation, and recorded for posterity the sight of its master hanging upside-down from Sky Lynx's open cage, high above the main arena of the Cosmic Carnival. Rorza had, unfortunately, given the Recorder standing instructions to broadcast all his performances live to all the planets in the Galaxy where his fellow Rigellians were known to live, and the Recorder duly shared his embarrassing predicament - and his scream of panic as he shot up into the air from the ramp formed by Sky Lynx's tail fin - with every other member of his species, in high definition with surround sound.

When Rorza had extricated himself and his rocket cycle from the cage, and then extricated himself and his rocket cycle from the safety net that had been hastily erected beneath them, he learnt what the Recorder had done and was very, very unhappy about it. Recorder 922 spent the next thirty years gathering dust in a corner of the hold of Rorza's ship, until someone broke in and stole it during the 2018 Galaxy Kombat tournament on Derut Four - a tournament that would see the deaths of both Rorza and his friend, Violen the Juggler.

As Rorza packed his Recorder away, he swore that if he never saw a Rigellian Recorder again, it would be too soon. Sadly for Rorza, while he was still working on the Cosmic Carnival, trying to put his humiliation behind him, a new performer arrived to take on the mantle of star of the show, if only for a brief time. This performer was a strong man - a very strong man - who, banished from Earth and Olympus by his father, Zeus, until he learned the meaning of humility, travelled through space looking for adventures, accompanied by his friend, Recorder 417.

NEXT: THE STORY OF HERCULES, PRINCE OF POWER

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

5. THE STORY OF HERCULES, PRINCE OF POWER

"Verily, forsooth, yon Cosmic Carnival, 'tis a wondrous place, friend Recorder, filled with marvels to behold. Mayhap some few of yonder champions possess courage sufficient to challenge the Son of Zeus to a friendly bout of combat? In sooth, the Prince of Power doth yearn to test his peerless mettle against some six or seven villains and prove once more the strength of his good right arm. Pray thee, go and enquire of yonder steward where thy lord may find brave and worthy opponents, if such there be in this shining yet pungent-scented realm."

"Observation: The sign says a fee must be paid before entry is granted."

"A fee? The Prince of Power is surely exempt from such trivialities. Let us pass, steward, or I shall break thy head, as readily as yonder bull-like creature breaketh wind!"

"Dear me, sir, I fear my universal translator must be malfunctioning. Your speech sounds both odd and threatening. Please hold, while I summon assistance."

"Hold? What meanest thou? None may tell the mighty Hercules to hold his ground when he senseth mischief afoot. I fear not thy scaly giants - rather do I welcome their challenge. HAVE AT THEE!"

"Exclamation: Oh, no, not again."
___

Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the Cosmic Carnival, where visitors are never permitted, the owners observed the fight taking place in Docking Bay 17. When the dust eventually settled and only one combatant remained standing, or rather sitting atop the pile made by his defeated foes, one of the shadowy watchers spoke an instruction into a microphone:

"That one. Determine his price and offer him a contract."

NEXT: THE STORY OF RICHARD BRANSON

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

6. THE STORY OF RICHARD BRANSON

London, England - April 1st, 1988.

For some, improving the environment conjures up visions of picking up a sweet wrapper from a city street or country lane. This man has always liked to do things on a grander scale.

"There we are. Two giant robots, as promised. And to think, you doubted I could deliver!"

"I've gotta hand it to you, Mr Branson, that's one heck of a bit of litter."

- Marvel's Transformers UK #160
___

He'd done it. At last, he'd actually done it! There had been setbacks along the way, such as letting Megatron and Centurion slip through his fingers. But other forays into the field of alien technology had born fruit, most notably the excavation of the wrecked starship buried beneath Stansham Castle. A health and safety hazard, they had said. Allow my specialist waste disposal division to take care of it, he had said.

It had taken years of painstaking reverse engineering, but finally it had all paid off... and now, Virgin was the first private enterprise to successfully launch a manned interplanetary expedition - with its illustrious leader at the helm, naturally.

A quick trip to Mars and back had been the plan.

Until the Cosmic Carnival appeared on their scanners.
___

Several Earthlings had graced the Cosmic Carnival with their presence prior to the day on which Richard Branson stepped aboard, but they had been poor. Mr Branson was rich. It made all the difference. In short, he got the red carpet treatment, and a private box overlooking the main arena.

The multi-millionaire took in the show, which consisted of a series of ever more bizarre performing creature acts, concluding, quite unexpectedly, with a display of strength by what he at first mistook to be a fellow human being but turned out in fact to be the well-known Greek demi-god, Hercules. After the show had ended, the recently appointed circus-master, a gentle giant named Ollie, invited Mr Branson back to his private quarters for a drink.

"A proposition, you say?" grunted Ollie, once they were both comfortable, Ollie smoking one of Mr Big Top's special cigars.

"Yes! Granting Virgin exclusive package tour rights for people... I mean, wealthy humans from Earth who want to visit the Cosmic Carnival. I've long had a dream of commercialising space tourism, but with you guys in the Solar System... we'll make a fortune!"

"Uh-huh. I'll have to run it past the owners."

"By all means. I had one question, though... How is it that Earth currency has value in outer space?"

Ollie shrugged. "Earth is part of outer space. Very popular tourist destination. But so expensive."

And he stepped out to make a call to his employers.

Richard Branson thought about this for a second, then he too shrugged and went back to planning his media campaign.

NEXT: THE STORY OF GARRY THE GILASHARK

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

7. THE STORY OF GARRY THE GILASHARK

"RRARR!"

"Rar yourself, lizard-lips!"

"Too much weight! Sorry, Sky Lynx. I've got to get you off me."

"Well, who's gonna get this Gilashark off me?"

- Marvel's Transformers #44
___

Garry the Gilashark was a university professor teaching analytic philosophy to Gilashark pups on his homeworld in the Andromeda Galaxy, but he grew sick of the endless pressure to publish peer-reviewed research, and even more sick of his unfaithful, nagging wife, so, when the Cosmic Carnival came to town, he packed it all in and ran away to join the circus.

Although scared of heights, Garry was highly resilient, physically, and so survived his fall from Sky Lynx's shuttle mode without serious injury. Several years later, he walked away after being punched through a wall by Hercules over a misunderstanding. (He had only said, "RRARR." The Prince of Power misheard and thought he had said, "RRARR!" A schoolboy error. Garry would have expected better from an Olympian.)

But more than a decade after that, when Garry got his timing wrong during a leap through a ring of fire and landed in the path of a blast from the prosthetic laser tusks of the Wondrous Wal Rus, Hero of Halfworld, it earned him two months laid up in the infirmary as his scales regenerated.

A friendly soul, Garry hoped to pass his convalescence in conversation with his fellow patients. To his left, however, lay a blue-skinned feline humanoid who had been badly maimed - in battle rather than by accident, Garry surmised. That poor chap was in a coma, on life-support.

To his right lay Glenda the Groot, one of whose branches had been snapped off during an experimental stunt that involved some fool juggling magna-chainsaws. They had saved the branch and were attempting to graft it back on rather than wait for it to re-grow.

"RRARR?" he enquired, sympathetically.

"I am Groot," she replied.

"RRARR."

"I am Groot!"

"RRARR!"

"I am Groot."

Garry nodded in agreement. He couldn't have put it better himself.

NEXT: THE STORY OF VIOLEN THE JUGGLER

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

8. THE STORY OF VIOLEN THE JUGGLER

"And for my next act, I will juggle with my pseudopods tied behind my back!"

- Marvel's Transformers #44
___

By the year 2013, the Cosmic Carnival had established itself on the Terbium Plains of the wandering robot planet, Cybertron, and was drawing in wealthy visitors from across the Galaxy.

"It's okay, boys. Mr Ollie is expecting me."

"Hmph."

Violen the Juggler strode past the hired goons and into the circus-master's office. Twenty-five years on from Ollie's unlooked-for promotion, little evidence of Mr Big Top remained - just the cigars, to which Ollie had become seriously addicted.

"Juggler," grunted Ollie.

"Boss," she returned the curt greeting, then urgently pressed on. "I've got a deal to offer you."

"Listening," he muttered, without much in the way of enthusiasm. This wasn't her first pitch.

"So, my contract and Rorza's are legally binding, we accept that. It was our fault for not properly reading the small print when we signed up. We should have understood the difference between the Aquillian words for 'month' and 'century', notwithstanding the fact that they are spelt and pronounced identically. I'm not here to argue that point again. We concede that you have the better lawyers. No, I'm here to suggest a bargain that leaves everyone a winner."

"You got two minutes."

"Our acts are stale, you have to admit that. It's many years since we ceased being the stars of your show. Rorza wants to see the Galaxy, and I quite fancy having a shot at ruling it. I want to be remembered as 'Violen Jiger, the Empress of Destruction', not as 'Violen the Juggler'. But I can't achieve my ambitions while I'm stuck here, juggling quantum grenades and space violins and paying customers and stowaways and what-not."

"And magna-chainsaws," Ollie idly interjected, eyes on the ceiling.

"You heard about my little accident, huh? Well, anyway, isn't that all the more reason for you to show me the exit? So, I figured, if I could offer you a substitute act, something better than me and Rorza, maybe you'd be willing to trade it for our freedom."

"One minute."

"So, I've signed up some new talent. Got them on an exclusive contract, which I'm offering to hand over to the Cosmic Carnival in exchange for you tearing up ours. Here's their hologram."

"Two Earth children? You can't be serious."

"They're not Earth children. They call themselves 'Thundercats'. Do you remember those three boys from Earth - Jed and Sammy and Allan - who were of a similar age to these two? Remember how they amazed packed crowds with their death-defying acrobatic skills on the flying trapeze?"

"No."

"Me neither. But wait till you see these two. They can scamper up walls, leap great chasms, throw and catch one another, dodge magna-chainsaws... They're like crazy human monkey cat things, with a bit of Gilashark 'RRARR!' thrown in. And they do rope tricks and throw smoke pellets and flash-bombs and all kinds of stuff like that there."

"Is that all?"

"Oh... yeah, I forgot... They also zoom around doing aerial stunts on their flying hoverboards."

"Hmmm. And I suppose you tricked 'em into signing their lives away."

"No trickery required. They've got a badly injured comrade in a coma, and were desperate to get him medical treatment. They'd heard that we have the most advanced all-species infirmary in the quadrant. But they've got no money. Instead, they say they're prepared to work indefinitely in return for their friend's long-term care."

"And their families?"

"No families. According to them, they are the last of their kind - planet, or possibly planets, destroyed by Galactus. The usual story, you know?"

"And their names?"

She flicked her tail nervously. "Er... Wilykit and Wilykat."

Ollie spat out his cigar. "Pfaw!"

"I know, I know. But we can change them to something more crowd-pleasing."

"I liked what you called 'em at the start."

"Thundercats?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'll give it to the marketing department to work up. And I'll get their costumes fixed. They're so three-decades-ago, don't you think?"

"Uh-huh. But I like the red logo. Keep that. It reminds me of my old pal, Sky Lynx."

Violen scratched her left horn. "So... do we have a deal?"

"Haven't seen 'em yet, have I?"

"Right, of course. But you'll love them, I guarantee it."

"Supposing I do, and supposing I agree. Where will you and Rorza go?"

"We thought we'd start by visiting Grand Central Space Station to upgrade our gear, then take a long holiday on the planet Pequod... and then maybe, eventually, we'll check out those Murderpits on Derut Four. I hear there's good prize money to be made there, and I'll need cash in order to fund my bid for universal domination..."

NEXT: THE STORY OF GNITRO AND GNEDWARD

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

9. THE STORY OF GNITRO AND GNEDWARD

In the flying headquarters of America's super-spy organisation, SHIELD...

"We gotta check out what's going on in Oregon, Nicholas."

"Dum Dum, if that big green fire-snortin' lizard is loose again, I quit!"

- Marvel's Transformers #3
___

"Up from the depths, thirty storeys high, breathing fire, his head in the sky! Ladies and gentlethings, let's hear it for the Cosmic Carnival's latest star, who is so big he won't fit inside the Cosmic Carnival... GODZILLA! GODZILLA! GODZILLA! And his, er, helpers... the Sharkticons!"

The audience of thousands of souls from across the Galaxy brave enough to sign the insurance waivers insisted upon by the Cosmic Carnival's lawyers, notwithstanding the mighty force-field now standing between them and the shore of the Rust Sea, held their breath and watched the surface of the Cybertronian ocean heave and bubble. And then... he was there! Godzilla, 184 metres tall compared to Metroplex's 212-metre height (but considerably longer when measured from his head to the tip of his tail), his roar carrying across several city-states, his atomic fire breath shooting upward past Cybertron's second moon, his hide practically indestructible - if only he'd been present for the coming of Unicron, the Chaos-Bringer would have experienced some serious pain.

Sixteen audience members fainted. Three died of heart attacks or their species' equivalent and were quickly removed by attendants.

"Yes, folks, please give a very warm welcome to our gigantic friend! A prehistoric hybrid of land and marine reptiles mutated and awakened by a hydrogen bomb test in the 1950s, this much-maligned and misunderstood monster has led the authorities a very merry chase, but has now found a home and a purpose, namely to make the rest of your lives pale to insignificance in comparison to the day you met... GODZILLA!"

Godzilla had vanished in the late 1980s as far as SHIELD was concerned, and the Cosmic Carnival's owners responded with no comment to all media enquiries on the subject of where he had been in the three decades since his last Earth sighting, when and how he had been transported to Cybertron, and the exact nature of their agreement, or understanding, with the monster, which resulted in his appearing on cue not five miles from the Cosmic Carnival's current landing site.

What was clear was that the Cosmic Carnival's two resident Sharkticons, Gnitro and Gnedward, had somehow gained the monster's trust, for they frolicked and splashed in the shallows around his feet, leaping and doing somersaults and what-not, very much like dolphins at play.

In 2018, Captain Sam Wainwright and Commander Allan Silver, former Spacehikers, now of Cameron Space Control, turned up at the Cosmic Carnival and made it clear to Ollie that his three Thunderians - the two youngsters and the one in the infirmary - would shortly be leaving him and travelling to Earth to join two compatriots of theirs who had recently been found floating in stasis pods, or, as they preferred to call them, suspension capsules, in near-Earth space. After five years of good return on his investment, Ollie was reluctant to lose Thundakat and Wildkitten, 'the finest acrobats this side of the Orion Nebula', but having Earth and Cameron as enemies would be bad for business, and they were offering him compensation in the form of two Sharkticons recently captured in some kind of battle. He resolved to make the best of it.

Since the Quintessons' failed invasion of Pequod, Gnitro and Gnedward had been members of Gnaw's short-lived freelance Deluxe Sharkticons, but that venture had ended equally badly, and they were grateful for the opportunity to change careers. They had never been to Cybertron before, though they had heard much about it, as it was thought to be where the first Sharkticons had been constructed and Matrixed thousands, possibly millions, of years earlier. Gnitro and Gnedward were shocked to learn that the region of Cybertron in which they found themselves was teeming with non-mechanical life-forms, most of them on holiday. They were pleasantly surprised to find so much water on Cybertron. And they had definitely not expected to run into Godzilla. But like Ollie, they resolved to make the best of their changed circumstances. That, it seemed, was one of the rules for survival in showbusiness.

They quickly amended their functions from Assault Sentry and Defence Attack to Nautical Acrobat and Aquatic Stunt Choreography, and reprogrammed their skill-sets accordingly. They also got Garry the Gilashark to teach them how to speak in 'RRARR', which proved to be a life-saver in their subsequent dealings with Godzilla.

It threw them for a second when they detected their Quintesson former master, Lord Kledji, and his second-in-command, Sevax, in the audience. But they appeared to be having a good time.

NEXT: THE STORY OF THE TRANSFORMERS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

TALES FROM THE COSMIC CARNIVAL

10. THE STORY OF THE TRANSFORMERS

"Ladeez and gentlemen! Welcome to O'Connor's Circus, here tonight in Calusa, Florida! Thank you for coming to see us! I guarantee you'll find it a worthwhile visit. We've prepared a show for you tonight the like of which you've never before seen! Thrills, spills - action, adventure! Truly, the tableau about to unfold before your unbelieving eyes will bring new meaning to the word 'entertainment'! And so, without further ado, it's time I shut up and let the actors speak for themselves! Preezenting - for the first time anywhere, the incredible-"

"PREDACONS! Hi there, folks - I'm Headstrong!"

- Marvel's Transformers UK #135
___

The year 2019.

Headstrong and Ramhorn burst through the arena wall and then quickly dodged out of the way to allow the lions, Razorclaw and Steeljaw, to bound into the main ring with a mighty roar. The crowds watched, entranced, as the lions turned to face the rhinos, who were now charging them head-on. At the last possible second, Ramhorn transformed and shrank to cassette mode and was snapped up by Razorclaw, while Steeljaw similarly vanished down Headstrong's gullet. The spectators gasped at this miracle, but, before they could think about what had just happened, their attention was drawn to the sky, where a trio of blazing comets was heading straight for the open roof of the Cosmic Carnival.

The three space fighters cooled as they slowed following re-entry into Cybertron's atmosphere, and became discernible to the sharper eyes amongst the throng far below. Scattershot and Strafe pulled up and banked away before they reached the roof, but Sixshot kept straight on, transforming to winged wolf mode and firing his retro-thrusters, landing with perfect poise on a high platform, just as Nosecone and Quickswitch burst through the arena floor in their drill tank modes.

Divebomb swooped down from his perch and snatched Quickswitch up in his talons, lifting him high into the air before releasing him. The audience screamed as the heavy assault vehicle arced towards them, only for it to transform to jet mode and buzz over their heads, causing them to duck as they felt the hot wind in its wake.

The Technobots, Afterburner and Lightspeed, and the Predacons, Rampage and Tantrum, entered the arena through the tunnels made by the two drill tanks, while Scattershot and Strafe made their own, belated, entrance through the roof. Quickswitch transformed to beast mode and leapt from platform to platform, higher and higher until he was on the same level as Sixshot. Meanwhile, Headstrong and Razorclaw spat out the two cassettes they had swallowed, which transformed back into a robotic lion and rhinoceros. The Predacons and Technobots were all now in pre-arranged formation, and fluidly combined into Computron and Predaking.

The two giant robots detached their arms and tossed them to one another, the arms reconfiguring and attaching themselves to their recipients' shoulders, so that Computron now had Predaking's arms and vice versa. Quickswitch and Sixshot leapt down in their creature modes, to be caught by the two giants and then propelled past one another as they transformed in mid-air into their gun modes, and then caught again, each by the combined warrior opposite.

Predatron and Compuking fired the Sixchangers into the sky, tracing patterns among the stars, as Ramhorn and Steeljaw stalked close past the audience's front row, growling and snarling theatrically. Between the two giants lay the hole in the wall made by Headstrong and Ramhorn at the start of the show, and through it a new roar could be heard, as a rag-tag motorcycle gang annnounced its arrival.

"Geroni-do-ron-ron-ronimooooo!" came Junkion Leader Wreck-Gar's inimitable battle-cry.
___

Weeks earlier, the Transformers' leaders stood clustered together in the city-state of Kalis, watching Constructicons and Autobot Construction Patrol members working feverishly on Megatron's old, abandoned, experimental planetary rocket boosters. If the wandering globe was ever going to be nudged back into the orbit of a star and re-powered by the limitless solar energy that would then become available to its many and varied inhabitants, astrophysicists said 2019 was the year to provide that nudge, to alter Cybertron's course ever so slightly and ensure its gravitational capture by a nearby yellow star, half a century from now.

Autobots and Decepticons had been working on the problem on and off for decades, and through their combined efforts they now believed they had a solution within their grasp. But it was at risk of slipping through their fingers, because...

"We're skint," said Prowl. "Broke. Insolvent. Bankrupt. Cash-poor."

"The hardware is structurally and functionally sound, but we need eighty-three megablocks of Aquillian crystal to replace the unstable Cybertronian fuel that the mad scientist, Flame, put in the engines' power cores," explained Wheeljack. "Nothing else will do if we want the boosters to change Cybertron's course without blowing up half the planet."

"The Decepticons' default solution would be to steal it," grunted Trypticon.

"Even if we could accept that, which we can't, there is no accumulation of Aquillian crystal that large in the known Galaxy," observed Thunderclash Prime. "We would have to source it from a hundred different inhabited worlds. No, we need the Galaxy's leaders to bring their Aquillian crystal to Cybertron voluntarily - and give it to us."

"How are we going to get them to do that?" grumbled Sixshot, pacing back and forth impatiently, transforming from upright mode to wolf mode and back again, itching for some action.

Gutcruncher, the entrepreneur, eyed the Decepticon Sixchanger thoughtfully.

"I've got an idea," he said.

THE SHOW NEVER ENDS