Revelations Part II: Descent

Writers: Marv Wolfman

Cheetor and Rattrap make a surprising discovery about their missing memories and the identity of Tankor.

Major Characters (in order of appearance): Characters

Minor Characters (in order of appearance): Characters

Original Air Date: November 6, 1999

Summary
A gazelle-like beast watches Optimus Primal swing from tree to tree in a mysterious forest, following a trail of floating Sparks towards their nexus, the AllSpark. Suddenly, the AllSpark vanishes, and Primal is suddenly restrained by vines. As he watches, the placid forest vanishes, the trees and grass replaced by buildings and steel. Before him, the face of Megatron laughs trimphantly as the organic vines becomes technological.

Optimus awakens, shaken. The dream is revealed to be a Oracle-induced vision. Cheetor explains that he was worried about his leader, seeing as he was yelling and fearful. Primal rebukes him, saying that they should leave him alone no matter how worried they are. With Primal back in the Oracle, Cheetor takes over. Explaining to the Maximals that the Sparks of the Vehicon generals are subverted Maximal sparks, he tells them that they must extract the sparks somehow and reformat them into other technorganic Maximals to help them accomplish their goal (whatever that may be).

Cheetor suggests going after Tankor first, as he is slower then the others (in both speed and mentality). Blackarachnia suggests going after Thrust (for obvious reasons). However, she is the minority, and Tankor wins out. Cheetor splits them into two groups- Nightscream and Blackarachnia will distract Thrust and Jetstorm, Rattrap and Cheetor will (hopefully) extract the spark of Tankor and place it in a new body.

The three Generals are entrenched at a spaceport, supervising work. Tankor is coordinating the loading of a spacecraft, Jetstorm supervises the defense from the sky, and Thrust... is doing something important too. Probably.

Nightscream distracts the two latter Generals by destroying a building, prompting Jetstorm to give chase to the bat. Nightscream manages to escape and drains the energon from his body, weakening the plane. Blackarachnia tries to talk to Thrust about his past identity, and he begins to experience flashbacks of prehistoric Earth, seeing "Optimal" Optimus, Rhinox, Cheetor, and Blackarachnia (all in their final incarnations) looking at him.

At the docks, Rattrap distracts Tankor by throwing a bomb at him, irritating him enough to chase him. Cheetor transforms to robot mode and leaps from Drone to Drone, as Tankor fires at him. Rattrap interfaces with a crane and knocks Tankor away into some crates. Rattrap then attempts to interface with his mind.

Rattrap finally manages to access his past memories, and also breaks his amnesia.

Rattrap discovered that Megatron had broken free of the Shuttle in transwarp space, where he was sucked away. Rattrap remarked that "that was the last of him". Eventually, the team returned to Cybertron and was immediately shot down by orbiting satellites.

Rattrap takes a breather from watching these, and wonders why they all seem to be from his point of view. He then plugs back into Tankor's brain. He sees Cheetor (in his TM2 form) and Primal (in "Optimal" configuration) escaping from tank drones. But the drones fire some kind of "devolving gas", which reverts the escaping Maximals to their weakest configuration (and presumably gives them amnesia.)

Elsewhere, Rattrap and Silverbolt are hit by the same gas. While Rattrap (in a Transmetal form) merely devolves back into his original organic mode, Silverbolt seems to be in great pain (as he has no early mode to revert to). Rattrap wonders why he can see himself if these are supposedly his memories. But as the Drone closes in, he discovers that this is all from Rhinox's perspective- which means that Tankor is Rhinox!

As Thrust and Blackarachnia talk, Jetstorm (strengthened) arrives, buries Nightstorm under fallen rubble, and accuses Thrust of fraternizing with the "enemy". Thrust denies this, and Jetstorm puts pressure on him to remove Blackarachnia's Spark. Grudgingly, Thrust shoots her and uses the device to steal her Spark. Jetstorm prepares to take the Spark to Megatron.

Technical/Animation Glitches

 * Glitch

Continuity Errors

 * We never discover what the tank drones are loading onto the spacecraft, or why. Sure seems to be important, though.
 * Although "Optimal" Optimus seems to be able to fight Megatron and win, he just runs away from the Drones and does nothing when they fire gas at him.
 * Oddly enough, on that note, despite having beast/vehicle modes that can easily outrun/combat the Vehicon drones, the Maximals instead run away from them.

Transformers References

 * References

Real-World References

 * Reference