The Face of the Nijika

While ferrying Perceptor, Ultra Magnus, Rodimus Prime and Blurr through space, Sky Lynx alerts them to a peculiar sighting before them, though Blurr is none too impressed by this. Immediately after he states his thoughts, Galvatron pops up to start bashing the whatever-it-is, soon followed by a Quintesson ship!
 

Perceptor assumes that Galvatron is meddling with something the Quintessons would prefer he didn't, so Rodimus believes it a good idea to get meddled in it themselves. Cyclonus, meanwhile, discourages his leader from attacking the huge disc, only to get a fist in the face as Galvatron yearns to find the secret of it, but gets a blast from the Quintesson ship before he can blast it in cannon mode.
 

The Quintessons are relieved to find that their disc has not suffered significant damage, so blast the Decepticons off into the distance. The Autobots arrive, however, and fight back on their rocket packs, getting attacked by both the Decepticons and Quintessons as they advance upon the disc, but Sky Lynx fends them off. Whining that the Autobots mustn't examine the lock, the Quintessons decide that examining it "from inside" is A-OK, and opens the thing up for them.

Turns out the lock is for some kind of space warp, though Galvatron gets moody over the Autobots finding it first and flings Cyclonus at them to get the glory for himself. However, the Quintesson ship flies through the warp, trailing the Autobots and Cyclonus through via the ship's propulsion trails (or something), but things have gone pear-shaped for the tentacled bad guys: Their isolator key that opened the lock has short-circuited, stranding themselves on this side of the warp, and the Autobots managed to survive!
 

Even Perceptor, who happens to have a universal emulator built into his body, which could make a fine substitute! Matters are assisted for the bad guys by him suffering damage and being unable to return to robot mode, as well as his allies being oblivious to his cries for help, leaving the Sharkticons an easy task to finish.

You know, I liked Transformers best when it's lingo made sense. Universal emulator? Give me "manifold mouth" any day.

Down below, a particularly oriental-styled village witnesses the sight of the plummeting Autobots and take it as a sign that the "devils have returned," and go into mob mode. Perceptor, meanwhile, lands in the snowy mountains and is retrieved by a blacksmith, who reacts to his Autobot insignia with surprise.

The three other Autobots get back on their feet and find that wherever they are has a very dense molecular structure, making trees feel like boulders and boulders feel like very very hard boulders, the latter leaving Blurr with a damaged leg. Meanwhile, the blacksmith chips off around Perceptor's insignia and extracts the universal emulator, much to his dismay! The Quintessons, at the same time, discover where Perceptor has landed and send the Sharkticons after him again.

The blacksmith makes off to a small tent wherein lies a small, fan-wielding doll; Nijika, the Sky Dancer. He implants the Autobot insignia onto it's face, but senses danger and departs before the process is finished, finding Sharkticons outside. Showing that he knows kung-fu like Wheelie knows rhyming, he totally kicks their asses from here to somewhere pretty far away, sending one back onto the hover vehicle they arrived on.

Nijika applauds the blacksmith on his fighting prowess, which surprises him what with the sentience and speech Nijika now displays. Back with Blurr and the gang, ol' speed-mouth is whining about his injury and how much it's hindering them, and tells Rodimus and Magnus to go on without him to find Perceptor, as if they can get Perceptor then he could possibly fix him. As soon as the leaders leave, a mob shows up by the downed Blurr, deeming him devil spawn and lunging upon him.
 

The blacksmith, Katzudan, explains that Nijika has not spoken since the "day the devils arrived," wherein the stars were stolen from the sky and the light taken from the villagers' minds. The devils arrived long ago when the city was all prosperous and such like, their guardian Kojure had not descended into slumber, and Katzudan's ancestor had built a "flying tower" which was meant to be piloted by Nijika, who he also created.
 

Nijika boarded and the villagers turned to Kojure, asking him to assist her on the journey as their forehead jewels shine and shoot light into that of their statue guardian. The door on the statue opened, but a Quintesson ship flew down and rained destruction upon them all, totally killing a bunch of people and destroying the rocket and Nijika, as well as flying inside Kojure and stripping wires from inside before returning to space.

To make things worse, that space warp appeared in the sky and totally blotted out the stars, which isn't cool. Perceptor, in Nijika's body, assumes that the big ol' lock was to prevent the people's advancing and evolution, and explains that the so-called devils were actually Quintessons; with this knowledge, they head over to the city to warn the good folk.

The Sharkticons return to the Quintesson ship, startling the crew with what damage they suffered and also proving that they themselves would have little chance of survival if they went down themselves. Cyclonus, who had been hiding outside the ship until now, makes his way in and offers a deal to them: Reveal the secrets of the big old lock to Galvatron and he will assist them on their voyage to the planet.

Meanwhile, Ultra Magnus and Rodimus are searching for Perceptor when they stumble upon a mob who start battering them with clubs, hammers and totally ineffective weapons. This does, however, send Rodimus sailing off a cliff, though he switches to robot mode in the knick of time and lands on his feet, resuming vehicle mode and going up the path again. Ultra Magnus then turns to robot mode and fires his gun in the air, stating he doesn't wish to harm the people.

Smart move, Magnus.

Rodimus demolishes the hammer just in time, offering the mob a launched missile if they want it, but they decide to make a run for it. Arriving outside the city, they find the Katzudan's tent (which is conveniently large enough for two giant robots) and see Perceptor's body, stripped of it's universal emulator, so they lug it off with them and decide to check out the city itself.

In the city, a Quintesson, Cyclonus and KKK clansman it seems are standing in the crowd totally ignored as they witness the trial of Blurr, which is to be dipped into some kind of unpleasant burning liquid. Before the good stuff can take place, however, Katzudan arrives with Nijika who sets to right the wrongs by stating the "devils" are merely mortals from another world, the stars are merely hidden, and that Blurr is necessary for their attack against the Quintessons. I'd debate that last one.

This turns the crowd into a mob, again, and the Quintesson requests pickup while Cyclonus kidnaps Nijika, prompting Katzudan to leap onto him. Rodimus and Magnus arrive at the city just in time to see Cyclonus entering the Quintesson ship, where Perceptor is demanded to hand over the universal emulator or else Katzudan dies, and complies without a fuss. The empty body of Nijika is tossed overboard.

Blurr, meanwhile, has his rope cindered by Quintesson fire and plummets into the liquid, yet finds it relaxing and soothing rather than horribly burning and death-bringing. He flies straight out of the pool and into the Quintesson ship, knocking over the holder of the universal emulator...

And prompting another to shoot at him, merely exploding some machinery instead of hitting his target. Rodimus and Ultra Magnus then get on board somehow (even though the ship's meant to be high in the air) and tackle Cyclonus, rescue Katzudan, grab the universal emulator and make a hasty departure, though the Quintessons claim they can't escape and will be trapped in this alternate world forever as they make an exit, Cyclonus following after.

The empress of the land fears what the Quintessons will take from them next, but Perceptor, having had the universal emulator installed back in his real body, shows that the stars are reappearing as the Quintesson ship returns through the lock. In turn, the citizens turn towards Kojure and shine their mind power towards it, the stars bringing back their mental energy, and opening up the statue again.

The citizens set about fixing the damage inside, and it becomes evident why the Quintessons wanted their powers locked away; their power and expertise is limitless! Fireworks shoot through the air as the world returns back to the universe, Galvatron and Cyclonus making their exit as Sky Lynx arrives.

With everything back on track, Perceptor asks Katzudan if he will keep up his ancestor's work on rocketry, who states he will, vowing that Perceptor and Nijika will meet again, out among the stars.

For whatever reason, Metrodome's DVD contains no credits for this episode, merely fading out straight to the TV-Loonland AG credit.

The Transformers are really inconsistently drawn in this episode in regards to their size with the people. Sometimes they're towering, sometimes they're just a bit bigger, and sometimes they're the same size. Wacky!