A Plague of Insecticons

by Ragey

A group of farmers are minding their own business, ferrying their goods over a quiet, peaceful little lake known as Demon Swamp, when things naturally go wrong with giant robot insects blowing up their boats and forcing them to make a hasty exit back the way they came. Of course, they can't even let that happen, with the mechanical grasshopper, Kickback, ploughing straight through their raft and leaving them to float back to their farm. And they can't even escape this madness by returning to their farm, they have to follow after!

The Insecticons are dicks.

The farmers radio for help first, alerting the Autobots and leaving Skyfire, Brawn, Windcharger, Bumblebee and Spike up to the task while Sparkplug stays behind to contact Optimus Prime about the matter. Laserbeak, naturally, overhears the part about giant insects and reports it to Megatron, who heads out to the scene they were last seen and send Ravage to investigate. The cassette creature leads them to what appears to be a mud-made house for the Insecticons, but is actually...

A Decepticon shuttle pod!
 

This brightens up their day, now knowing that these insects are of their own kind and blasted off before their own shuttle did, and adapted by becoming farmyard pests, so they set off in search of them.

Meanwhile, Optimus Prime and the other Autobots are heading to the destination Sparkplug's coordinates lead to, only to be stalled by a group of villagers taking part in their wacky foreign celebrations, so Sideswipe suggests they take a shortcut down a mountain, only to come to a dead end. Thanks a bundle, genius. To make up for his idiocy, he then suggests that they go under the villagers instead by burrowing through the wall. Thanks a bundle, genius!

Meanwhile, the Insecticons are feeding on the crops of the aforementioned farm while chasing people and destroying farming tools just for giggles, when Skyfire shows up. Realising that their lasers aren't exactly damaging, the Autobots believe they're in for an easy win, only for Shrapnel to create copies of himself and his crew all around the field which are not optical illusions, much to Brawn's dismay, but real copies that are actually more powerful than the originals inexplicably, what with them actually causing pain and all.
 

Things aren't going well for either Autobot party; Sideswipe is taking his sweet time busting through the cave, and now Megatron and his crew have arrived, giving Brawn the opportunity to wisecrack. The Insecticons are more than chuffed to meet their leader, and after some meaningless banter, aim to blast at the Autobots all at the same time.

Autobots to the rescue!

The Autobots arrive in the nick of time and proceed to either crash into the Insecticons or crash into Megatron's fist, but in the end they promptly chase off the Decepticons, though that isn't them out of the way for now; Megatron announces an oil refinery as their next target, and their plan is bound to be a devious one.

Wheeljack patches up Skyfire's transforming mechanism that was damaged in the attack, the big lug returning straight to his post as monitoring the Decepticons from the sky, and in no time at all lands himself in hot water with the Insecticons blasting his underside and gripping onto his wings. The Autobots see this and stop, even though they told him earlier that they can't help him from the ground, but Wheeljack steps up to the task...

By flying.

He dispatches of the Insecticons with shoulder mounted missiles only to be knocked out of the sky by Kickback, allowing Optimus Prime to save his skin and provide him with a pop culture reference.

Meanwhile, the Decepticons arrive at the oil refinery and reveal their master plan: Filling energon cubes up with oil. Devious.

Back with the Autobots, Shrapnel pulls another trick from his sleeve: The ability to drive Sideswipe and Sunstreaker with purple rays, though after a bit of joyriding, Trailbreaker blocks the control from him with some force field wizardry.
 

Brawn, however, feels that method of defeat is too impersonal, and gets Optimus Prime to throw him up at Shrapnel to give him some good old fashioned head stomping, though Kickback continues to be a party ruining jerk by kicking him off onto the cockpit of Skyfire. The Insecticons decide they've wasted enough time around the Autobots and head on to the oil refinery for some real fun.
 

Contrasting what was said earlier, Rumble is a busy little boy filling up energon cubes when the Insecticons arrive, hungry after the day's work, and are pointed in the direction of a huge oil tanker filled to the brim with the delicious goods, only for Skyfire to show up and knock them off the sides with some careful ramming. The other Autobots arrive and hide behind crates, only for the knocked down Insecticons to rise from the water and prepare to blast them.

They merely dodge the blast and leap into the oil-filled water, realising what a stupid decision this was when Thundercracker approaches with his flamethrower, igniting the oil, though they simply get under the pier and crash through from beneath, knocking the Decepticon into the air. Ironhide rushes in after not doing anything for the entire episode and douses the flames with his fire extinguisher hands before they reach the tanker.

Shrapnel, once again hogging the Insecticon spotlight, summons a thundercloud and disturbs it with his missiles before channelling it into his body and out of his palms, using it as a weapon of major damage! Spike and Bumblebee do not approve of such cheap attacks and plan to do something about it, by simply entering automobile form and driving at him, receiving a lightning blast but no damage.

"Rubber tires are insulation! Lightning can't hurt you when they're rolling on them!"

With this newfound rocket science level knowledge, the Autobots ride on each other and beat the crap out of the Insecticons, leaving them a little boggled about the situation. Megatron decides to stick with the classic means of destruction, blasting a flaming hole in the oil tanker and move it closer to the pier so the whole place will go up in smoke, making a villainous laugh about just how ludicrously evil he is.

Optimus leaps in and saves the day by flipping the tanker upside down, while Trailbreaker saves Spike and Bumblebee from an army of Insecticon clones with his force field, breaking the control over them. Megatron tries to get one last victory, only for Optimus to throw the tanker at him, leaving the Insecticons with lost faith in their leader and munching on the energon themselves before fleeing, the leader of the Decepticons unhappy with such treachery.

The Decepticons follow after the Insecticons to punish them while the Autobots wish them the best of luck in that for once, Optimus reminding them all that they're both Decepticons and won't be enemies forever, so to be wary of their return. Then Wheeljack kinda goes nuts and plans to turn Spike into a motorcycle. He so crazy!

Skyfire still sucks!

I guess when Bombshell claimed they were outgunned "but not outsmarted," he meant "you'll never expect Kickback to knock down a five story robot with barely a push!" At least he isn't knocked unconscious this time, only suffering transforming mechanism damage. Of course, after knocking down the Insecticons on the tanker he promptly vanishes for the rest of the episode and the following. Out of shame, I imagine.

Wheeljack confuses everything by not only flying, but also replacing his shoulder cannon with shoulder mounted missiles in only ten seconds.

Starscream and Skywarp are strangely absent from this episode, leaving Thundercracker as the only Decepticon jet. I guess they just wanted Starscream's power lust out of the way to focus on advertising the Insecticons, as it's not like Chris Latta and Frank Welker were absent for this episode.

So, what does Bombshell do in this episode? Kickback and Shrapnel seem to steal the spotlight the whole time.