Velocitron Speedia 500 Part 3

Surprise! Part 2 wasn't the end of the race after all. Part 3 may not have been ready when Crasher went up, but now we finally get one:

Vision-Impaired Transcript:

Page 1

• Panel 1: Apparently crossing the finish line in the last installment didn't actually end the race, as Scourge, Blurr, Burnout (now with a second, all-yellow human in her passenger seat in addition to the armored Dia behind the wheel), Road Rocket and Road Hauler are still zooming along, now being followed by Shadowstrip, Galaxy Shuttle, and Crasher, with "SPOOM" written above them in katakana. Cosmos, sweating and emoting like a shonen protagonist, hovers above the road between them.
  

  Cosmos: Well, the Speedia 500 is in its second week, and-- wait, what!? Three new racers have barged onto the track!
  Burrr: Who's that?
  Dia: *looking back over her shoulder through Burnout's window* A pitch black trio?
  Road Rocket: Ninja huh?
  Cosmos: It's a black race car-- no, two cars! And... a locomotive?

• Panel 2: Inside a tunnel, Shadowstrip peels past Scourge and Override, shooting his guns wildly at the walls and narrowly missing Cosmos, who is in the tunnel with them.
  

  Cosmos: The mysterious six-wheeled racer is Shadowstrip. He thrives in darkness, and is destroying the lights in the tunnel!
  Scourge: *weakly* Dark...
  Shadowstrip: I draw upon the power of the shadow! The darker the better! Witness me! ...if you can.

• Panel 3: Cosmos gets increasingly worried, as Crasher manages to flip around backwards and slam her front wheels against the ground, opening a giant chasm that Shadowstrip and Clampdown spill into.
  

  Cosmos: The other car is Crasher! She's splitting the track with her seismic power! The other racers can't get through!
  Crasher: Mu-hu-ha-ha-ha! I take the win!
  Shadowstrip: Gah, I was so close!
  Clampdown: Falling!

• Panel 4: The train engine swiftly turns into a rocket to fly over the obstacle. Shadowstrip, in robot form, tries to climb out of the crag, while Road Hauler has showed up and is using his crane's claw to rescue Clampdown. Crasher watches from the other side.
  

  Cosmos: But the locomotive in last place has transformed! It's the warrior Galaxy Shuttle, blasting over the gap!
  Crasher: What!?
  Galaxy Shuttle: That's right! Remodeled and reinforced with new power!
  Clampdown: *humbly* Thanks man.

Page 2

• Panel 1: Cosmos, still in his altmode, waves the checkered flag as Galaxy Shuttle flies ahead of all the other competitors, including several depictions of characters who had been announced as toys in the time since the last comic was released, so the story can maintain its claim on featuring every Transformer in the Legacy line. Galaxy Shuttle throws up a Victory sign with his fingers, while Shadowstrip and Crasher angrily shake their fists at him.
  

  Galaxy Shuttle: V!
  Cosmos: And that's the race! No one could beat the power of Galaxy Shuttle and his cargo carrier combined into Victory Mode! The other racers can't believe a late entry has won the Speedia 500! The spectators are jumping down from the stands! All the Transformers and gathering on the track. Are we about to start again...?
  Caption: END
  Yellow Dia: *to armored Dia* You are under arrest.

In an odd twist, the bit with Dia being arrested as they cross the finish line is picking up a story thread from both a BotCon comic and the Masterpiece biographies. Originally part of "the Diaclone project," Burnout was a mech with an AI operating system based on its human pilot, Dia Cinders. When the pair were accidentally transported from their home reality to the G1 universe, robot and human were irrevocably melded into one composite being. While the Transformers in this new world were able to repair Burnout, based on similar robots they knew, they couldn't do anything for Dia without a local copy of her; but "Mirror Dia" was a wanted criminal on the run, so they'd have to find her, first. The trail led to Velocitron, where the villainous version somehow ended up driving Burnout in the early stages of the race. The yellow version who appears here is the "real" Dia, showing up as a holomatter avatar to arrest her G1 counterpart and finally regain her own human body.

The comic also explains how Prowl can visit the Legacy world despite being dead in his own reality: there's an AllSpark fragment embedded in his front end, suggesting he was brought back to life similarly to Starscream's head.

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