Storm the Desert

« Transformers: Cyberworld episode 9 »
Look upon my giant scorpion robot, ye mighty, and despair!
Storm The Desert
Season	1
No. in season	9
Production company	Hasbro Entertainment
Airdate	September 17, 2025
Writers	Ali Lightfoot
Animation studio	Omens Studio LTD
Continuity	Cyberworld
Watch this episode on YouTube

Our heroes try to rush the boss ahead of schedule.

Synopsis

In the desert region, Scorponok still guards the crashed Autobot Shuttle, as Elita-1, Bumblebee, Grimlock and Optimus Prime discuss tactics over radio. Neither Elita or Bee are happy to be in the desert, but Optimus tries to keep them on task. He and Grimlock will distract the humongous bot head on, while Elita and Bee aim for his weak spots. Scorponok proves impervious to their blaster fire, deploying his own shoulder mounted cannons to force the group together, whereupon he uses the same "dig underground and erupt" move he tried on Optimus Prime in their first encounter. Grimlock is caught up, but Prime rescues him with his axe. Bumblebee manages to jump onto his back, out of reach of his claws and sword-tail, where he finds a weak spot under a grille. He takes potshots at it, paining the giant robot, but his success is short lived, as Scorponok simply transforms to an equally humongous robot mode, plucks Bee of his back, and dives fist first, Bee included, into the ground, leaving the smaller bot unable to move. Elita is thrown onto his head and finds another weak spot, bashing at it with the butt of her gun, but is also thrown off into the desert sands. With Bee weakened, Scorponok goes to use his buzzsaw claw, forcing Elita and Grimlock to pry it off his chest while Optimus aims for the weak spots. It's no use, though - Optimus cannot do enough damage while Bumblebee is losing a lot of energon to the attack. In the end, Prime goes to Bee's aid, helping lift the claw before it can do fatal damage to Bee. Dangerously low on health, one of their group unable to fight any longer, Prime calls to retreat.

Grimlock throws his T.rex head, which transforms into a hoverbike for Elita-1 to get Bumblebee out of there, and while they make it to safety, Optimus Prime and Grimlock struggle to outrun Scorponok. It looks like they're goners, until Snarl runs in, forcing Scorponok to pause with an energy wave from his sword, and the group make it riding atop Grimlock. Grimlock chews Prime out for wasting their chance to take out Scorponok and escape just to save Bumblebee. Now, in his eyes, the truce with Megatron was sacrificed for nothing, and he and Snarl have been pointlessly forced back into the cruel cycle of fighting to survive. The two debate over Prime's leadership style, and in the end, Grimlock says he gave Optimus a chance, and he blew it, before leaving with Snarl.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Elita-1 (2) Bumblebee (3) Optimus Prime (4) Grimlock (5) Snarl (6)	Scorponok (1)

Quotes

"None of us have the tyres to keep this up for long."
"I don't even have tyres."

—Optimus Prime and Elita-1

"I hope saving little one was worth, when Megatron turn you all to scrap."

—Grimlock

Notes

Continuity notes

• The Autobots discovered the existence of Scorponok's weak spots back in "Screamer City Arena".

Character levels

• Optimus begins the fight at Level 2, half way to Level 3. By the end of the fight, he's at Level 1, dangerously close to no XP.

Real world references

Elita-1's ready to take on Rainbow Road.

• Bumblebee complains that the desert sand is "coarse, and rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere", quoting Anakin Skywalker's infamous flirting dialogue from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
• Grimlock refers to Bumblebee as Bumblebeans, referencing a joke once made by Thew Adams when reviewing Titan Changer Bumblebee.
• Elita-1 announces her dodge rolls (repeatedly), likely in order to bring the audience's attention to her performance of a common move in action video games; dodge rolls typically offer a moment's invulnerability, allowing the player character to avoid damage. Which clearly work in the Cyberworld.
• Elita-1 does the Akira Slide on the dino-head hoverbike.
• Snarl is, once again, a ninja from a shonen anime, with his run and his sword attacks.

Trivia

Come quietly, or there will be...trouble!

• Unlike other Cyberworld episodes, which debut on a Saturday, this one debuted on a Wednesday to line up with "Transformers Day" (no episode aired the Saturday prior). Like other Cyberworld episodes, it was initially uploaded alongside the previous episode with an SEO baiting title ("Boss Battle! Optimus Prime VS Scorponok"). The title comes from writer Ali Lightfoot's twitter feed.
• Grimlock and Optimus Prime are both animated without mouthplates in the final scene. It's not an error, but it does come out of nowhere. Also, mouthed Grimlock is freaking weird.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Les combattants du désert" ("Desert fighters")
• Original airdate: September 17, 2025

German

• Title: "Stürmt die Wüste"
• Original airdate: September 17, 2025