The Golden Lagoon

by Ragey

Perceptor, Warpath, Seaspray, Powerglide and Beachcomber are on a patrol of a beach when they stumble across a rock containing traces of gold and silver, which is presumed to be pretty damned amazing, though Warpath certainly isn't impressed. However, Blitzwing, Ramjet and Thrust are watching this from above, and decide it necessary to start an aerial attack on the Autobots.
 

The two Seekers strafe down on the Autobots and open fire, prompting Powerglide to chase after and Seaspray to take his battle to the ocean. Firing is exchanged in considerable amounts, though it's only when Ramjet decides to crash into Seaspray that someone gets hurt - Ramjet himself, the Autobot moving out of the way just in time.
 

Blitzwing is left to become a jet and deal with Warpath, who's also a terrible shot and his attacks prove to be pretty useless, and ends up being clobbered when the Decepticon flies down, transform into a tank and rams him off his treads. Perceptor deems it important for them all to make a quick exit and commands Beachcomber to follow him, only for the little blighter not to be around!

The little dune buggy has decided to explore their surroundings and finds himself in a natural paradise of assorted wildlife, plant life and whatnot. After chilling with a parrot, he soon finds himself surrounded with love from these furry ones, but his attention is brought to that of a golden pool with traces of silver, which he dips his hand into. Electrum!
 

Meanwhile, Seaspray is knocked for six by Ramjet resurfacing from beneath him, Warpath continues his tirade against Blitzwing while Thrust hounds Powerglide, but all this damage to the scenery causes an earthquake over where Beachcomber is. For whatever reason, despite seeming like an open area, rocks kind of fall from the sky and clobber him a few times, though he escapes safely.

Thrust, however, is alerted to the electrum lagoon and bathes himself in it in no time, coating himself entirely golden and exclaiming dreams of power because of it! Beachcomber reunites with Perceptor, but doesn't get around to stating where he was before Ramjet starts firing on them, knocking them to the ground, though Seaspray saves the day with a surprise attack.

Electrum-coated Thrust then returns and stands before Perceptor, who begins pelting him with lasers and hand missiles in a rather unscientific fashion, and even Seaspray joins in with some laserfire, but the Seeker just laughs it off. Blitzwing, who's being fought by both Warpath and Powerglide, just kind of strolls away while the Autobots focus all their fancy weaponry on Thrust, who's just downright invincible! Warpath blasts them a hole in the cliff to escape through, though Perceptor and Seaspray are captured by Thrust's handy-dandy extendable talons.

The two are brought before Megatron, who anticipates great victory-achieving information to extract from them, but for the time being just throws them in a cell. Thrust arrives to inform his leader of the electrum pool he found, prompting a "we still be unstoppable" claim from Megatron, though Starscream is dubious and gets a verbal punch for such thoughts.

The Decepticons arrive at the electrum pool, where Starscream fears for his health before being pressured to dive in, followed by the rest of his cohorts. Megatron demonstrates the invulnerability by blasting him to no effect, though kind of destroys the environment in the process. The rest of them get themselves a coat and start blasting each other, believing with this great benefit, the Autobots will be vanquished! Forever!
 

Meanwhile, having gone for help from Omega Supreme and buddies, Powerglide and Warpath are discussing their rescue operation with Smokescreen while Beachcomber stares thoughtfully at his electrum-coated hand, pondering over the electrum and their current sticky situation. After barely discussing a thing, Smokescreen and Warpath roll out while Powerglide lingers about a bit and announces his thoughts randomly.

"I sure wish Mirage was here. We could use him!"

"Your wish is granted! I've been here for ten minutes!"
 

The group all set out to fight the Decepticons again, but the bad guys have rallied themselves en masse and do precisely the same, beating them up all pretty badly. Powerglide gets sent into the drink, Warpath gets flipped over and Mirage does the intelligent thing by realising something's not right here (normally people get hurt in a fight!) and decides to go back for reinforcements.

The only one left, Smokescreen makes use of the tactic his name implies and drives at the Decepticons, though what he would achieve from this I've no idea. Instead of going "where is he?" like ginormous doofuses, the bad guys just shoot at the whole cloud and eventually blast him, which makes him violently fly out of the dust cloud, crash against several boulders and then land on his roof. Victorious, Megatron leads his troops onward to completely annihilating the Autobots!

Mirage arrives back at Omega Supreme, where a squadron of other Autobots have been camping at and takes a few of the dudes with him while they fight back against the Decepticons. Naturally, mercy is out of the question from the bad guys and the fighters are thwacked pretty badly, Sunstreaker in particular suffering a nasty dosage of laser from Starscream. Beachcomber is distraught over how the Decepticons found the golden lagoon, even though he quite clearly saw an electrum-coated Thrust earlier, and makes a run for it.

The Decepticons arrive back at their headquarters and gloat over their victory, and bring out Perceptor and Seaspray to battle each other to the death for their entertainment. Soundwave, being a spoilsport, says Megatron must be informed, but the two are made to duel without his permission anyway. Smokescreen, meanwhile, returns to Omega Supreme and claims he is the only hope he have in ever beating the now invincible Decepticons.

Beachcomber returns to the electrum pool and finds the once beautiful surroundings are now no more than charred scrap. A few Decepticons frolicking in the electrum pool become aware of their visitor and promptly catch him in a laser net before he can do anything. Megatron is sent Soundwave's message, so heads back to base to sort the matter out.

Back with Perceptor and Seaspray, they decide to blast the walls and ceiling, raining debris down on their captors and allowing them to escape through the hallways. They reach the elevator, but Megatron and a captured Beachcomber are inside, preventing their escape and naturally forces them to be sent back to their cells. Megatron denounces Starscream for almost letting the prisoners escape, informs him that their next target is Omega Supreme, and the ever dubious minion will be leading the fight!

Powerglide flies back to alert Omega Supreme of the approaching Decepticons, which is kind of redundant as they show up in seconds flat. Using all his firepower, he blasts them back, only to have his shoulders disabled, forcing him to create an earthquake beneath his thunderous foot, which laughably takes down a few of them, even though they can all fly.

Megatron decides he's had enough of this and transform into his pistol mode, letting himself be wielded by Soundwave and scores a direct hit on Omega's chest. Weakened enough already, this blast is enough to send Autobots' last hope collapsing down to the ground, completely disabled. After a moment of gloating, the Decepticons then move onto the big cheese of their reign of destruction: Autobot headquarters!

Over there right now, Optimus Prime (nearly sixteen minutes in and it's only now he starts talking!) is flabbergasted by Omega Supreme's defeat, but Mirage reminds him that it's the dire truth. Ironhide informs the boss of Teletraan-1 computing the word "electrum" for no adequately explained reason, and that immediately brings Prime up to date on everything, and commands the Autobots to search for and find the electrum before the Decepticons can strike again.

Meanwhile, Powerglide finally gets himself out of the ocean (um) and spies the Decepticons overhead and sneakily follows them to the electrum pool, now aware of how they were downright unbeatable when he fought them and scoots off to alert Prime of this shocking revelation. Back at Decepticon headquarters (weren't they going to attack the Ark?) Starscream is granted permission to dick about with the prisoners they have, much to his pleasure.

Skywarp and Thundercracker unlock Beachcomber's cell to shift him out, but find him missing, though he's obviously hiding in that convenient crevice in the ceiling you dumb dumbs. He manages to beat up the two of them unarmed, taking one of their shoulder lasers and unlocks the cell containing Seaspray and Perceptor, using that laser to blast open a convenient window and then swim their way to safety.

While the Decepticons decide to go and finally claim themselves total victory, Dirge is left at the golden lagoon to load up barrels with electrum and keep an eye on things. In yet another example of a Mini Vehicle overpowering a Seeker, Seaspray smothers the poor guy, knocks him out and swipes his lasers. The group hear a rustling from some bushes, and take aim at...

Optimus Prime and the other Autobots!

While the Autobots coat themselves in electrum, the Decepticons have been taking part in a ruse at the Ark, which is being guarded by mere dummies and is completely empty! Megatron is understandably peeved at this, but instead of taking advantage of this by stealing things or something, they return to the golden lagoon and find the Autobots waiting for them.

Even Omega Supreme got in on the electrum action, and the two sides set about blasting each to pieces, minus those last two words. The two factions exchange firepower, pretty much downright destroying the scenery in the process, yet the only one who shows any reaction to being blasted is Bumblebee, being knocked over by the force.

However, Blitzwing's colour begins to return to normal, prompting Perceptor to blast him and send him crashing into a hill with a humongous explosion, quite blatantly showing he can be harmed now. Starscream suffers the same fate and Megatron becomes well aware of the problem facing them, forcing them to make a hasty departure.

Before they do leave, they make sure that if they can't have the electrum for themselves, then neither can the Autobots! Concentrating their fire on the lagoon, the electrum becomes volatile and violently explodes, leaving a huge crater as the Decepticons make their departure. The Autobots celebrate... except for Beachcomber.

...

"We won."

Starscream holds his nose when he dives into liquid.

That's adorable.

You have to admit it's almost hard to sympathise with poor Beachcomber when he spends the whole episode not telling anyone of the electrum, but the ending is actually kind of strong. Well, as strong as a cartoon about robots that turn into cars hitting each other with lasers while saying "sizzling circuits!" can be, y'know.