Desertion of the Dinobots, part 1

by Ragey

The Autobots are monitoring Doctor Green's remote controlled undescribed jet that one would imagine would need to be pretty darn awesome to get the Autobots to dub it "very impressive," but wildly oblivious to them, Soundwave is hiding inside Ironhide's trunk! Ravage is deployed, but Blaster, who just happens to be sitting right next to his greatest rival without so much as noticing (fffff), grabs hold of the ferocious feline and starts a fight with it inside Ironhide.

Soundwave makes a getaway and reports to Megatron that the so-called security are distracted, and Starscream is given the task of dropping a device onto the jet with relative ease, which after a delay, causes the thing to blow sky high, if you pardon the pun. Of course, it's only now that Blaster finishes up with Ravage and arrives at Prime with Ironhide to inform them that the Decepticons are about, prompting them to not go looking for them, but to simply inspect the wreckage.
 

With this distraction, Megatron and company head over to the EJK, whatever that is, and prepare to break into the plan-containing vault for the jet, but conveniently enough, the Autobots arrive! Jazz disables them briefly with a sound and light show...

While Mirage has the balls to sneak up invisibly to Megatron, swipe his cannon and wrestle with him briefly, actually holding his own for a fair while. However, while this is taking place Megatron is seen outside, waving merrily, which to Soundwave and Starscream suggests that their fearless leader has called for a retreat yet again, so they make good their exit. Of course, this is just one of Hound's holograms, but Prime proceeds to boot the real Megatron out of the building, who retreats for reals this time.
 

Meanwhile at the Fun O Rama theme park, Bumblebee, Carly and Spike engage in a completely pointless scene where they ride on spinning tea cups, which Bumblebee doesn't see the pleasure in until his equilibrium circuits are switched off. They pop over to the airport to pick up Sparkplug, but out the window they see two familiar military jets; jets that surely shouldn't be at a commercial airport!

Of course, they find a Decepticon base inside the hangar Thundercracker and Thrust park in, and call Optimus Prime for assistance. However, he and his team are too busy fixing up the laborartory they just trashed up to help, and the call is transferred to the Ark, where Wheeljack claims the place is understaffed as well. With no one else to turn to, there's only one team available that no one wanted to see: The Dinobots!

After a brief argument, the Dinobots see no reason why they shouldn't help out and make their way over to the airport. They rip and tear their way into the hangar, prompting Starscream to make a comment on his leader's security measures while his lasers get melted to bits. Outside, however, Bumblebee is stalked by Blitzwing, who's taken care of by a stomping and a kicking from Sludge.

Snarl kicks ass with cartoon logic, and Rumble's attempt to fight on his own just gets him whipped into Megatron's face. Outside, Thundercracker and Thrust strafe Grimlock, mocking his inability to munch their fast moving frames, only to have bombs dropped on their heads by Swoop, which causes them to crash into the hangar and explode quite utterly.

Normally you'd expect Megatron to retreat by now, but shockingly, he calls for his units to charge at the enemy! This does not end well, Thundercracker and Thrust wrestling with Slag and only getting tossed aside; Starscream having a shot bounced right back at him; and Megatron being thrown inside a building by Grimlock. Bumblebee fears it all seemed too easy, but the Decepticons have been whipped pretty badly, so this calls for a celebration!
 

The Dinobots transform to robot mode for no reason, which Megatron calls for Skywarp to fire at the tanker behind them, causing several planes to erupt into flames and explode, knocking the Autobots for six. Victorious in battle, the Decepticons make their leave while Hoist, Red Alert and Inferno arrive on the scene to clean up the damage and tow the Dinobots back to base.
 

Despite Spike believing Ratchet, Wheeljack and Hoist to be the very men who could patch the Dinobots back to perfect shape, they struggle quite badly with the primitive tools they have to use, compared to the superior ones they had on Cybertron. While Ironhide, Grapple and Powerglide rebuild the airport and proceed to botch it up pretty badly, the Decepticons return to their headquarters and have Ravage eject from Soundwave's chest involuntarily.

Soundwave attempts to explain that it occurred without his will, but it's made clear something's not right when they all plummet from the sky, followed up by Rumble unwillingly beating up his leader to no avail, prompting them to try and find out the cause for this strange behaviour. Meanwhile, the Dinobots are put back to perfect working order, but when ordered to stop a Decepticon rampage they refuse, claiming they won't take any more order from Floptimus doodoo-face and will only fight when they want to, and storm out.

The so-called rampage is just the Decpeticons getting themselves some energon, but they can't go out for some groceries without the Autobots putting a stop to that so it's no surprise the entire army shows up to put an end to it. Jazz, however, struggles to turn to robot mode until Ironhide gives him a good kicking. Megatron, assuming role of Captain Obvious, attempts to announce "it's the Autobots!" only to get cut off mid-sentence by his utterances being rendered into inaudible mumbles. Needless to say, Starscream believes this makes him the new leader from now on.

And he proceeds to fly straight into a pile of energon cubes.

Ironhide attempts to coat him in liquid nitrogen, only for his sprayer to malfunction and end up covering himself in the stuff. Mirage tries some invisibility action, but this merely changes his hue a little and makes him all too visible to Thundercracker, who blasts him out of his path. Ravage, in a rare moment of actual being useful, knocks Optimus down to the ground, only to transform back to cassette form unwillingly and allows the Autobot leader to drop him into a disproportionate oil drum.

The battle continues to be full of malfunctioning warriors, though Megatron succeeds in toppling a power tower on top of Optimus and preparing to blast him to dust, but in the worst use of commercial break suspense ever, misses his shot and doesn't even try for a second one, preferring to call for a retreat. The Decepticons just jig about a little attempting to gain flight before opting to leg it.

Returning to base themselves, the Autobots all feel differing symptoms of wooziness and just plain awkwardness, but Perceptor has the answer: After millions of years of being exposed to Earth radiation, Cybertonium - an element essentially to their survival - has been drained and the only place to get some more is on Cybertron, which can only be accessed via the Decepticon space bridge. Conveniently enough, Spike and Carly rush in to alert the others of a message they just intercepted through means unknown of Shockwave sending a shipment of Cybertonium to Earth. Conveniently more so, the Dinobots, having been made on Earth, haven't any Cybertonium in them and therefore are in full working order, but goodness knows how they'd be convinced to help out. Teletraan-1 pinpoints their location to forty miles away, so the three humans drive out to recruit their assistance.

The Dinobots aren't too happy that they tracked them down, nor are they happy to help out the Autobots, but they change their minds once they find out the Decepticons will benefit from it all if they don't act fast. They pop on over to the space bridge where the Constructicons are preparing it for the transfer, and prompt a bit of a scuffle.

They merge into Devastator with all but the right arm, which just means less enemies to stop them getting into the space bridge with remarkable ease and making their way to Cybertron. Shockwave isn't too chuffed about having stowaways in his command tower, but he's just a laser pistol against five dinosaurs, so it's not like he can stand his ground terribly well.

Of course, going to Cybertron wasn't exactly in the dress rehearsal, as all they had to do was swipe the cybertonium, but by now the Dinobots refuse to take orders and cut off communication. Spike and Carly decide they have to go to Cybertron to get the cybertonium themselves, knowing that Optimus Prime is just too close to death to even stop them from going. As they head out, Sparkplug provides Spike with a two-way communicator built by Wheeljack that sticks to his thumb and only requires him to talk into it. Spike immediately realises how stupid he'll look doing that.

Devastator is waiting patiently at the space bridge, but a bit of fancy driving from Carly gets them safely past him and into the space bridge without a hassle. However, what they weren't expecting was Shockwave to be waiting as well, and opening as soon as they arrive...

Apparently the Dinobots live in a walk-in closet.

And apparently the Constructicons don't have any problem with a lack of cybertonium. You could debate the whole origin confusion, or you could just say it's to allow a fight of construction vehicles against reptiles.