Transport to Oblivion

 

Optimus Prime and Ironhide are outside the Autobot base, when Cliffjumper walks outside too and sees something that looks a bit like a Decepticon standing above them. He blasts it and Prime and Ironhide almost get crushed under the rocky wreckage and Cliffjumper apologises. Ironhide says that they sent the Decepticons to the bottom of the sea months a go so it couldn't have been a Decepticon, but Optimus doesn't believe that the Decepticons are truely gone.
 

Prime's fears are true, as in the months that have passed between this episode and the previous one the Decepticons have created a underwater city to serve as their new base. Megatron is pleased about the situation: as far as the Autobots know, the Decepticons are all dead and so they can plan their next attack in peace. Shockwave then contacts Megatron, and since he's been on Cybertron for four million years the energon he has left is extremely low, but he has managed to nearly complete the new transport project.
 

Later on Soundwave and Laserbeak attack a power station and quickly scatter all of the human workers there. Megatron blasts down a wall to let Skywarp and Starscream in and the two of them rip out some pipes whilst Soundwave generates energon cubes for them to fill which they do by filling them up with electricity.
 

Optimus Prime finds out about how a city has lost it's electricity and gets Teletraan-1 to find out what's causing the problem. The computer sends out a sky-spy which heads towards a solar power station and it soon manages to get an image of Megatron up on the computer's screen - confirming the fact that Megatron, and most likely all of the other Decepticons, are still alive and well. Optimus brings together a group of Autobots to go out and stop them, but only six of them can go since everyone else is out on patrol.
 

The Autobots soon arive at the power station and start to fight the Decepticons, but when things like this happen you just know who's going to win. After beating down all of their enemies, the Decepticons gather up all of the energon cubes they have made and then withdraw back to their base. With Ironhide injured after being blasted by gun mode Megatron, the Autobots can't chase after them and instead head back to base.
 

Later on Jazz is told about how the Decepticons got away with lots of energon cubes, but Prowl says that Megatron has no way to tranport them to Cybertron, and as far as they know they don't have a new ship or anything like that either. Optimus them comes along and tells Bumblebee to go and spy on what the Decepticons are doing, so he transforms and heads out along with Spike who tags along too.
 

Meanwhile the new transport system which Shockwave has been working on has been completed, and the Decepticons are about to test it out by sending over a small vehicle filled up with energon cubes. The catch is, however, that the space bridge will only be online for eleven minutes, so they have to act fast. Spike and Bumblebee just so happen to find the Decepticons and learn about this new system which links Earth to Cybertron and watch as the first vehicle is sent across.
 

The space bridge is activated and the vehicle is picked up, but when the transport chamber opens, Shockwave finds nothing and reports this to Megatron. Starscream says that the space bridge is worthless but Megatron says that the reason the test failed was because the vehicle was unmanned and that it just needs guidance over the space bridge to get to it's destination.
 

Nobody has the guts to actually pilot the vehicle though and Megatron is about to pick a volunteer when the Decepticons hear some noise above them and see that foolish Bumblebee has idiotically fallen down in his car mode, and he and Spike are quickly captured by the Decepticons and shoved into the vehicle. But time has run out and the eleven minutes are up, meaning the space bridge is not operable for some time. To make matters worse Bumblebee and Spike escape and head off.
 

However Soundwave sends Ravage out and seperates Bumblebee from Spike, and with the Decepticons opening fire, the only thing Bumblebee can do is head back to Autobot base without Spike.
 

However Starscream and Skywarp transform and chase after him and he can't just drive back to base due to all the firepower they are blasting at him with, so he drives towards a cave and hides in there. He then transforms and explores the cave a bit trying to find another way out and climbs up... only for the two Decepticons to be waiting for him up there, and Starscream knocks him out with a null-ray blast. Megatron then messes with his memory banks so he can be part of a new plan.
 

The Decepticons send the little twerp back to Autobot HQ where Sparkplug is wondering where on Earth his son is. Bumblebee arrives and tells them about the Decepticon space bridge and how Spike is going to be sent to Cybertron unless they do something fast, and then Bumblebee tells them the location of the space bridge and Spike, but the location is of course completely wrong.

 

Bumblebee leads them to an abandoned cave, though any doubts about it being the right place are foiled by Ironhide claiming the little guy never lies, only to end up walking into a Decepticon ambush. Thankfully for the Autobots, they actually fare pretty well with Jazz destroying physics by batting a laser blast back at Starscream and Ratchet trapping Laserbeak in a Pac-Man shaped net.

 

Megatron aims his cannon at Ironhide, only for Optimus Prime to shift him out of the way but end up getting his foot stuck in the rubble the blast generated, giving the Decepticon leader the opportunity to cut him down to size by rolling a metal blade towards him, missing his foot by an inch and inexplicably filling the room with fog. Optimus sneaks up behind him and tries to get him to surrender, only for Megatron to simply fire at him and duck behind a wall.

 

Shockwave contacts him to alert him of the space bridge reopening again, prompting the Decepticons to make a hasty escape while firing upon the mouth of the cave, sealing the Autobots inside. Ratchet discovers Bumblebee's memory chips have been altered while making repairs, but upon fixing them the yellow midget tells them of the real location, so the Autobots explode the rocks away and roll out for their destination.

 

Meanwhile, Spike is let out of his cage and placed back inside the space bridge shuttle where's informed that he must aim straight for the beam or he will fly and "cease to exist," and mocks his claims that the Autobots will come to rescue him. Only for them to come to rescue him.

 

Realising that Spike's shuttle is heading for the space bridge, Ironhide suggests blowing up the thing with a bazooka before Bumblebee decides to get him out of the mess himself, Optimus shooting off Spike's chains and allowing him to leap onto the bonnet of his yellow buddy as the shuttle goes off course and crashes into the outer wall of the space bridge, scattering the energon.

 

Desperate to dispatch his energon before the space bridge closes, Megatron starts gathering them up, only for the Autobots to knock him into the bridge with some heavy fire, the bridge closing as he enters and ships him up through the portal. Starscream claims Megatron is dead and declares himself their leader as the Decepticons retreat, while Bumblebee is beyond delighted that their enemy was defeated by his own contraption.

 

Of course, it turns out that the space bridge merely did its job and sent him up to Cybertron, where he laments to a disheartened Shockwave of his loss, but claims that the Autobots haven't seen the last of him, making a dynamic pose.


Despite the Autobots, Spike and Sparkplug preparing for a return trip to Cybertron at the end of the previous episode, that idea is totally forgotten by this one and everyone's relatively content on Earth.

 

Time must be slow if the space bridge closed a while before Bumblebee escaped, giving him enough time to escape, be reprogrammed, return to the Autobots, tell them of the cave and then get over there and have a large fight only for it to open again, all in eleven minutes.

 

How did the Decepticons build a whole underwater city, complete with rising dispatch tower in only a few months? I'll let Megatron himself field this one.

"Use your imagination!"