The Transformers: Escalation

Plot summary

Escalation begins by showing Prime deciding to send the humans home for their own safety. Escorted by Ironhide and Sunstreaker, they are attacked by the Machination, a shadowy organization wanting to acquire Transformer technology for themselves. Sunstreaker and Hunter are seemingly killed. The Autobots rally to find his corpse, but the Machination prove more than ready for Jazz and Wheeljack. Optimus Prime stops the truck with Sunstreaker's corpse, and they discover it is a fake.

While this has been going on, Megatron has begun his campaign, sending his troops to escalate tensions in trouble spots (with Skywarp and Thundercracker bombing a Middle Eastern power station) and activating facsimiles (loyal clones) to see that tensions rise accordingly. Megatron, having taken the form of a pistol, personally journeys to the disputed Soviet state of Brasnya, attacking both sides. The Autobots mount a response, trying to capture the facsimile and a battle breaks out, with Prowl and Hot Rod capturing the facsimile. Prime confronts Megatron, but is no match for the Ore-13-enhanced Megatron and seemingly killed. Prime survives by briefly transferring his consciousness into his trailer and alerts the Autobots to Megatron's weakness: the more he exerts himself, the faster Ore-13 will burn out. Prowl's troops distract Megatron long enough for Prime to recover and put the now severely weakened Megatron to flight. However, their mission has failed, as the facsimile is dead.

Back in America, Ratchet and Ironhide disobey orders to track down Sunstreaker, as Jimmy tracks the materials used to make the decoy to a specific garage. The Autobots are unable to enter because of the sophisticated defenses, so Verity and Jimmy go in, but are knocked out by the defense systems and trigger a self-destruct mechanism. Ironhide intervenes and manages to rescue them, but the self-destruct goes off and seemingly kills him. However, Verity has snagged something from the Machination base.

The story ends with several revelations. Megatron decides to call in Sixshot to accelerate Earth's destruction, unaware the Reapers will be following in his wake. The Machination and their backer, a shadowy, badly damaged Decepticon, have completed some sort of surgery on Hunter, and begun to produce copies of Sunstreaker's body for use in their "new world order". And it is revealed that Skywatch, a mysterious defense organization, has not only dug up the bodies of Shockwave and the Dynobots, but have in their custody Laserbeak and Ravage.

Easter eggs

Autobots

Bumblebee
Hardhead
Hot Rod
Ironhide
Jazz
Nightbeat
Optimus Prime
Prowl
Ratchet
Sunstreaker
Wheeljack

Decepticons

Astrotrain
Blitzwing
Megatron
Runabout
Runamuck
Skywarp
Starscream
Thundercracker