City of Steel

by Ragey

 

New York, New York, the wonderful town. Home of the Statue of Liberty and other such exquisite demonstrations of human ingenuity, and also where Laserbeak is currently patrolling! After doing a spot of that, he nips down beneath a manhole, through the sewers, out a door and arrives in the underground Decepticon headquarters, where he reunites with Soundwave, reporting that there are no Autobots in the vicinity.

 

Megatron is pretty pleased with this news, as it means the Constructicons can continue with the plan, which is pretty darn insidious. What are they doing? Why, simple. Removing the ground from beneath the Empire State Building, and then DRAGGING IT INTO THEIR UNDERGROUND LAIR.
 

Meanwhile, newshounds are obviously pretty quick to be reporting this, and the Autobots immediately blame Megatron for such a nonsensical scheme. Half of the team just drive there via old-fashioned roads, while Wheeljack, Hound, Mirage, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker head towards Central Park via waterskiing. In car mode.

 

Laserbeak spies the water bound Autobots, but they have no time to fight the nogoodnik and can merely hope they arrive before Laserbeak can report it. Of course, the Decepticon reports it before they make it, so the Constructicons are ordered to be on their guard, and prepare a welcome for the Autobots that will promise plenty of death, demise, and just plain unpleasantness.
 

Optimus, Ironhide and company arrive in Central Park, only to be intercepted by Rumble, Frenzy and Soundwave. After exchanging a few insults, the piledrivers are brought in and Ironhide is thwarted, which even by animation standards looks like bad acting.

 

However, that is only a decoy: Megatron's proper welcome is for the Constructicons to bury up the ground from beneath Optimus and pull him in to their lair! Of course, if it were simply that then it would just be asking for defeat. That's why Megatron cuts off his motor relays, leaving Optimus in a state of suspended animation! How rude. He then tells the Autobots above if they want their leader kept alive, they will leave this city!

 

If it were just that, then sure, okay, no problem. But he has evil intentions for New York! Not only will he pull the buildings underground, but he has rebuilt them, which he will continue to do for the rest of the city until it has been made into New Cybertron! Showing just how much they care, as the Autobots and humans evacuate, Optimus Prime is the only thing they're whining about. 

 

However, Spike's got a plan to get back into the city, so they all take a different route.

Meanwhile, although Megatron is pleased with how effortlessly his apparent victory has gone so far, simply having Prime deactivated worries him, so he gets Hook to cut the poor guy into ribbons.

 

Not even that stops Optimus, and with some fancy-pants telekinesis ability of some kind, he powers one of his arms to trip up Megatron. Thus, the Constructicons are given the free reign of disposing of Optimus' parts however they choose, but Megatron wants the head as a trophy.

Spike's plan to get in is executed, and it involves going through the city's sewer system, with Mirage scouting ahead invisible to warn the others of anything nasty.

 

Elsewhere, whatever could Scrapper have in mind with Prime's gun arm?
 

Hound's sensors suddenly declare that Prime isn't in front of them... he's behind them! And suspiciously, right behind them is a MURDEROUS ROBOT ALLIGATOR!! Mirage covers their escape while they head for a subway tunnel, where their plans to fight it here are shot down by the fact that doing so would alert the Decepticons via the dreaded little thing called noise. However, Hound's the man with the plan...
 

Bumblebee and Spike lure the mechanical monster into the train, where the two leap off, Ratchet starts it up and Hound diverts it down one of the tunnels. Crisis averted!

 

Meanwhile, the Decepticons are continuing the construction of New Cybertron, and even cranky Starscream is impressed with the likeness to home. The Autobots arrive in an area of the Decepticon lair, and stumble across Optimus' severed head!

 

A simple fumbling with a wire is enough to get his vocal processor up in action again, and Prime can sense his legs nearby, so with some more of that magic mind action, they come flying into the room. Hound suddenly realises why his sensors were saying what they were: That alligator was made out of their boss!

 

They return to the sewers, lugging their leader's parts down with them, and Mirage, Hound and Ratchet begin wrestling the reptilian robot, combined with some of that mental magic. Ratchet manages to disassemble the creature, sort out what belongs to Prime, and gets him more or less complete, except for his right arm. He senses that particular limb is above ground, so Mirage is commanded to radio the others and alert them of the news.

 

Wheeljack, Ironhide and crew are traipsing down New York, which is increasingly turning into a Cybertronian battle station, when they happen across the location of Prime's arm: At the top of a sentry tower! Megatron, now aware of Prime being pieced together somehow, is none too pleased, and uses it to blast at his foes on the streets.

 

Prime commands his troops to scatter so they won't be such easy targets. Hound and Bluestreak don't get terribly far, falling down a pit the Constructicons dug up earlier. This dumps them in the subway where, ever so conveniently, Frenzy is commandeering a train that's heading towards them at a dangerous clip!

 

A couple of laser blasts sort that minor hassle.

 

Bumblebee, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe seem to do well enough going down alleyways, only for a squadron of weapon-equipped battle taxis to pop up and advance upon them! This is solved by defying the laws of physics and just jumping over them, no need for momentum or anything. The Constructicons try firing upon them with cannons, to similar effect (useless).

 

Prime shows up to mow down the battle taxis and to explode the cannons, flinging the occupants out rather hilariously. He reunites with Ironhide and Ratchet, where with the help of a grappling hook, begin scaling the tower to reclaim his missing arm. Spike believes the Autobots need help, so he and Bumblebee enter the tower without much regard to their own vulnerability and tendency to put themselves in danger.

 

Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp are called in to blast them down, but they just crash straight the tower in a demonstration of utter stupidity. Starscream, however, tries to go back for another round, only to be dunked into the ocean after Sideswipe flies onto him and threatens something particularly gross.

 

The Constructicons are ordered to merge into Devastator, and begins scaling the tower to hunt down his prey. At this point in time, Bumblebee and Spike arrive in Megatron's command post and get chased around by the big grey handgun, calling him such names as "Megaklutz" in an attempt to rile him up.

 

Quite conveniently, Megatron accidentally blasts the console, rendering the gun arm inoperable. Whoops! Buzzsaw and Laserbeak are ejected to chase after the fleeing duo, while Megatron still believes victory is at hand, what with Devastator grabbing Prime and smashing Ironhide and Ratchet through the wall.

  

Meanwhile, Wheeljack comes up with a screwball idea to blast Devastator with remote control helicopters, inspired by King Kong, of all things; though I say screwball, it's not like he comes up with any other kind of idea. Hound witnesses the obvious failure of it, but tries to put a positive light on the matter.

  

Having been knocked inside the tower, Ironhide and Ratchet hear Megatron shouting commands above them, and blast the ceiling, not only causing Soundwave and Megs to fall through, but also to fall through the floor they're on as well! Spike and Bumblebee arrive on the roof to tell Prime that his arm isn't commanded by Soundwave anymore...

 

So with that news, he uses it to swat the avian cassettes out of the sky, and after reminding Devastator what they arm is equipped with, uses the gun to blast him off the tower, sending both himself and the big lug plummeting to certain doom.

 

Thankfully, Ironhide and Ratchet are dangling out one of the windows, and manage to save their boss from the same fate as Devastator, which is simply hitting the ground really bad and then flying off with only a few scratches. Megatron and Soundwave follow suit, but not without promising their return and subsequent revenge for such an embarrassing defeat.

 

In only three lines of dialogue and two scenes, we hear that Prime is repaired to be good as new, but so is THE WHOLE OF NEW YORK CITY. Like, no difference in the place at all, like it wasn't completely rebuilt to suit giant plane-sized robots. Regardless, the day is saved, despite how baffling the concept is, and they roll for home.

Laserbeak has really wacky lasers at the beginning, using them to levitate manhole covers, open doors (gently, too!) and could probably fry an egg without downright disintegrating it.

 

Thanks to dodgy colouring, it looks like Bumblebee is among the Decepticon ranks while he's also evacuating the city, but it's just a Construction.

 

Prime's gun, when on the tower, is kind of ludicrously powerful. Does it need Prime's arm to make it that way, or were the Constructicons just asking for their plan to come back and bite them in the ass?

 

Devastator alternates between having individual eyes and having a visor, which isn't really anything new.

 

Reflector is actually referred to by name in this episode, but doesn't talk. Sure beats being filling crowd scenes, though, which he only does like three times in this episode.