Transformers Robots in Disguise

Catching Strongarm sneaking back into the Scrapyard after an unexcused absence, Sideswipe blackmails her into doing all his chores. Even as the team searches for Decepticon Clampdown, a Cybertronian blackmailer resembling a crab, Sideswipe uses his leverage over Strongarm to get out of duties he doesn’t want to perform. Clampdown is Steeljaw’s next target for recruitment, so the race is on to capture Clampdown before that can happen. The Bee Team battles Steeljaw’s pack in the Crown City landfill, threatening to crash a garbage scow into a tour boat, before Clampdown gets away with the bad guys. And when Bumblebee proves to know all about Strongarm’s trips away from the Scrapyard, Sideswipe goes back to doing his own chores.

After Russell boasts that he can’t be scared, he and the team rush off to investigate a Decepticon signal coming from a spooky cave network. As Russell and Fixit wait outside, the Autobots and Denny enter the caves, and one by one they’re captured by NIGHTSTRIKE, a Decepticon bat that feeds off the fear energy of his victims. The fugitive plunges our heroes into nightmares of their worst fears. After Fixit is also taken prisoner, Russell bravely follows his friends into the caves, and he feels a twinge of terror at being all alone with so much riding on him. But he faces his fears, snaps the Autobots out of their trances, and together they end Nightstrike’s brief reign of terror.

Separated from the team while searching Crown City’s subway tunnels for a Decepticon, Sideswipe is captured, becoming the test subject of Vertebreak, a Decepticon mad scientist with a fondness for body-swapping. Vertebreak places his own head on Sideswipe’s body, while keeping Sideswipe’s head in a jar in his laboratory. Vertebreak then proceeds to test Sideswipe’s body by pitting it against the other Autobots. Bumblebee locates Sideswipe’s head, his young charge having fallen into the deepest despair, now that he feels that he can’t use his physical capabilities to help. But when Vertebreak attacks all the Autobots at once, Sideswipe discovers he can contribute with strategy and ideas, which help win the day. Sideswipe gets his body back and Vertebreak becomes the team’s latest capture.

Claiming he “had to” leave Drift’s tutelage, Jetstorm comes to Earth to study under “Commander Russell,” and Drift arrives soon after to reclaim his pupil. The dispute between Jetstorm and Drift is put on hold when Quillfire and Springload escape and steal a prototype military tank. Teaming once more with his fellow Mini-Con Slipstream and their teacher, Jetstorm helps the Autobots stop the runaway Decepticons. After the battle, the rift between Jetstorm and Drift proves to be a misunderstanding, and the stoic bounty hunter and his Mini-Cons elect to remain with Bee and company to study their team dynamic.

During a training session, Grimlock suffers a serious injury, but keeps it hidden from the team because he wants them to know they can depend on him. When the Autobots journey to the bottom of the sea to prevent Decepticon Octopunch from escaping Earth in a sunken Cybertronian spacecraft, and the team must race through the ship to confront their foe, Grimlock’s wound threatens to derail the mission. Only when the Dinobot accepts help is the Bee Team able to bring down Octopunch. Grimlock learns that a team is only as strong as its weakest member, and that keeping information from teammates for reasons of pride can put everyone in danger.

Decepticon Gladiator Groundpounder, with the help of his conniving manager Headlock, insinuates himself into a demolition derby and starts taking down all challengers. When Bee, Strongarm, Sideswipe and Drift are stranded on the far side of the globe by the Bots’ balky GroundBridge, Grimlock goes “undercover” as a new derby contestant, aided by Denny, Russell and Fixit. Grimlock is supremely confident in his combat skills, but finds he can’t contend with Groundpounder without help from gladiatorial combat fan Fixit. As the rest of the team races back home, Grim decks Groundpounder, Fixit corrals cheating Headlock, and Russell crowns them both the new champions of the derby.

When Fixit’s “glitches” grow worse, the team decides to try and repair him once and for all. Denny nervously performs the procedure, and winds up unlocking previously unknown programming within the Mini-Con. Fixit becomes a heavily-armed, single-minded prison guard who regards the Autobots as escaped Decepticons. The Bee Team tries to subdue Fixit without hurting him, but only succeed when Fixit is distracted by a real escaping Decepticon. Denny restores Fixit to his lovably glitchy self, and the Bee Team decides to leave him well enough alone.

Steeljaw and his Pack cleverly lure the Bee Team away from the Scrapyard, and then overrun outmatched Denny, Russell and Fixit to seize control of the Autobots’ base. Locking the heroes out with a subsonic field, the Decepticons turn their attention to freeing their captive brethren. Denny, Russell and Fixit sneakily stall the bad bots long enough for Bumblebee, Drift, Sideswipe and Strongarm to devise a way to get back in. Our heroes manage to re-secure their prisoners before they can get out of their stasis pods, but thwarted Steeljaw and his allies manage to escape.

Grimlock itches to do more smashing than his duties on the Bee Team will allow, but he tamps down his cravings in order to be a law-abiding good guy. When he meets fellow destruction-loving Dinobot, Scowl, while patrolling, however, Grimlock finds himself tempted once more to give in to those urges, but stays on the side of the law. Believing his new pal to be good at heart, like Grim himself is, Grimlock lets Scowl go. But when Scowl’s next rampage directly endangers innocent humans, Grim must put aside his species loyalty for the greater good and bring down the destructive Dinobot.

Sideswipe, on patrol, meets and becomes infatuated with Windblade, a Decepticon-hunting Autobot sent to Earth many years before. When he introduces Windblade to his teammates, Sideswipe’s evident interest in her rankles Strongarm. As a group, they all head to a nearby airport, where Decepticon Zizza has used her mind-control abilities to assume command of the facility, endangering personnel and incoming planes. Windblade acquits herself well in the battle, earning Strongarm’s respect, and Strongarm puts aside her personal issues long enough to find the key to beating the Decepticon, earning Windblade’s.

Determined to show his young charges something great about Earth, Bee takes the team to a western ghost town. At first, the Autobots are thoroughly bored, but when a tour bus arrives, the Bee Team mischievously plays tricks on the passengers by making it seem the town is really haunted. After the bus leaves, the Bots start to wonder if there really are ghosts in the town when strange things start happening. But the true culprit proves to be shape-shifting Decepticon Pseudo, who happens to be hiding there. Mistaken identity issues complicate the bad bot’s capture, but once that’s taken care of, a glorious sunset shows the young heroes something great about their adopted planet.

Though Optimus’ training in the Realm of the Primes is not complete, the Great Evil he’s been told of is approaching, and the Primes lend Optimus a fragment of their collected power before sending him to Earth to face it. Meanwhile, on Earth, Strongarm and Sideswipe are captured by Steeljaw’s Pack, but before the ‘Cons can do anything with their prisoners, the mysterious First Decepticon orders Steeljaw to begin construction of the gateway that will bring the master villain to Crown City from another dimension. Bumblebee and Drift set out to find their friends, and track them to the Crown City Colossus, where they find the Pack building the gateway. Optimus arrives at the Scrapyard, and speeds to locate Bumblebee, reaching the Colossus just as the gateway activates and MEGATRONUS comes to Earth.

Optimus, abetted by the power of the Primes and a Prime Decepticon Hunter, takes on Megatronus alone, while Bee frees his teammates. Megatronus is too powerful for Optimus, and waylays the Prime. Wanting revenge against both Earth and Cybertron for previous defeats, Megatronus summons the AllSpark from Cybertron, intending to pair it with the AntiSpark at the center of the Earth, knowing the combination of the two will destroy both planets. Feeling betrayed, having been promised the Earth by Megatronus, Steeljaw attacks the “First Decepticon” and is quickly dispatched. The Bee Team joins their strengths with Optimus’, combining their three Decepticon Hunters together to gain increased power and better armor. Together, they are able to send the AllSpark back to Cybertron, and seemingly destroy Megatronus. In the aftermath, Optimus acknowledges the leader Bee has become, and decides to stay on Earth for the foreseeable future.