Smoke & Mirrors

« Transformers: Cyberworld episode 5 »
We now return to the abandoned city of Beast Machines!
Smoke & Mirrors
Season	1
No. in season	5
Airdate	August 16, 2025
Writers	Gretchen Mallorie Ali Lightfoot
Animation studio	Omens Studio LTD
Continuity	Cyberworld
Watch this episode on YouTube

Sneaking into Cyber City, our trio are ambushed by the master of mirages.

Synopsis

Hiding from hovering surveillance drones amongst some crates, Elita-1 shows Bumblebee and Optimus Prime a gap in a towering fence of solid metal through which they can sneak into Cyber City. As Snarl watches from above, they head on through. Once inside, Bumblebee is immediately distracted by a crate drop, and runs to grab it, ignoring Elita's advice that they lay low in the back streets. It equips him with a jetpack, but Elita is confused, as the drop was never shown on their internal maps. Before they can question it further, Mirage and Sky-Byte show themselves. Elita and Sky-Byte engage in some mutual taunting, but Mirage interrupts, letting them know Megatron hired them to remove them from Cyberworld. Optimus Prime, never learning, tries to talk peace, but Mirage cuts him off and surrounds them with illusory copies of himself. Bumblebee tries to demonstrate his new jetpack's power to fly out of the circle, only to fall flat on his face. The surprise crate drop had also been another of Mirage's illusions.

The Autobot trio brawl with the Mirage duplicates, who go down easily, but outnumber them five to one. Mirage at first disguises himself as Sky-Byte to use his throwing blades, but after a couple of hits, resorts to hiding in the shadows as himself. Bumblebee is tackled by the real Sky-Byte, but saved by Elita-1, and he goes to chase Mirage. Optimus follows Bee, but Elita is unable to resist trying to take her vengeance on the shark. As they run, Optimus and Bee are mocked by yet more Mirage holograms, picking on Bee especially for needing Optimus to protect him. Meanwhile, Elita has Sky-Byte backed into a corner, until he has Mirage drop another illusion, revealing he got an upgrade from Megatron since their last meeting - a set of wheels, letting him transform into a land-bound alt-mode and chase her down.

Still pursuing Mirage, Bumblebee is startled by the sudden appearance of Megatron, which is of course another illusion, as Mirage tackles him from the side. The two come to physical blows, but Mirage is able to use his illusions to turn invisible and steal Bumblebee's gun. Bumblebee mouthing off about they have a plan to beat Scorponok and return to Cybertron in a ship catches him off guard, though, and while he tries to ask questions. Bumblebee kicks him off a building, and he cannot transform into jet mode fast enough to stop himself hitting the ground. Meanwhile, Sky-Byte nips at Elita's heels hungrily, but Optimus Prime saves her. He tries to call Mirage for back-up to even the numbers, but Bumblebee arrives instead. Outnumbered three-to-one, he flees in shark-car mode. The trio give chase, but when Elita tells them to take a route to hide from surveillance, they instead run into a limping Mirage, who asks to talk about their escape plan.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Elita-1 (1) Bumblebee (2) Optimus Prime (3) Snarl (4)	Mirage (5) Sky-Byte (6) Megatron (Illusion) (7)

Quotes

"Give it up, Sky-Byte! You're a fish out of water here."
"Funny, I was thinking something similar."

—Elita-1 and Sky-Byte engage in battlefield banter.

Notes

Continuity notes

• Optimus and Bumblebee are still trying to get to the crashed Autobot shuttle from "Commence Program."

Character levels

• Bumblebee is still at level 2, though now a bit lower then what we saw in episode 2.

Transformers references

Hasbro realised they owned Power Rangers RPM and decided to use something from it.

• The idea of Mirage not being a loyal Autobot dates back all the way to the original Mirage's character bio, although that never blossomed into outright taking on jobs for Megatron, unless he's undercover again.
• Sky-Byte transforming into a shark-with-wheels resembles what happened to his Robots In Disguise counterpart in "Skid Z's Choice."

Animation and technical errors

• When Bumblebee says the line "And you thought I was fast before!" after getting the jetpack, his neck is missing and his head is just floating above his torso.

Trivia

• As with all other Cyberworld episodes, this was initially uploaded in a combined video with the previous one with an SEO-baiting title ("Surprise Crate Drop in Cyber City"). The individual title comes from series writer Ali Lightfoot's twitter feed.