While trying to find more of the mysterious cave water to repair Mo and Robby's cybersleeves, the Maltos find themselves stuck in an underground tunnel system with Starscream, Nova Storm and Skywarp. To everyone's horror, they're not alone; the Dweller, a mythical deep-space beast has made the tunnels its home and starts to chase the intruders down for food. The group is forced to work together to survive, but how much can the Maltos really trust Starscream?
Tropes:
- Achilles' Heel: The Dweller's turns out to be the cave water that contains the power of Quintus Prime and fuels the Terrans. Hashtag ultimately kills it by dragging it into a whole pool of the stuff.
- And I Must Scream: What the Dweller does to Nova Storm and Skywarp.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Starscream starts threatening Hashtag into using her Technopath powers to open the exit for him, Hashtah pointedly asks if this is how Megatron treated him. Starscream is notably quiet for a few moments after.
- Aww Look They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite Starscream's constant nagging and Nova Storm and Skywarp eventually having enough and splitting off from him, Skywarp and Nova Storm are willing to track back through the tunnels and search for Starscream and Starscream is notably worried when both of them are captured by the Dweller. At the end of the episode they seem to have reconciled and teleport away together smiling.
- Bad Boss:
- Once again, Megatron's past as a despotic violent leader to his troops is brought up. This time by Starscream, his favorite punching bag.
- Starscream himself doesn't really give a good impression as leader. He constantly bosses Nova Storm and Skywarp around, lets them fight for him and even kicks them when they're knocked down by the Dweller one time. It's really no wonder both of them eventually get fed up with it.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Starscream ends up growing fond of Hashtag and endangering himself to protect her from the Dweller, after Hashtag sympathizes with him over the abuse he suffered at Megatron's hands.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Dweller, a Cybertronian creature resembling a mixture of a centipede and a squid.
- Contrived Coincidence: The exact location in the old tunnels that Nova Storm stands in is right under the cave the Terrans were in.
- The Dog Bites Back: Nova Storm and Skywarp eventually get sick of Starscream's selfish behavior and once they arrive at a fork in the tunnel they take the tunnel Starscream didn't run into, effectively leaving him behind.
- Foreshadowing:
- The Dweller manages to snag and eat Thrash, but spits him back out almost immediately. At first it seems it's because Thrash is a Terran and thus has no energon for it to feed on, but later down the line it's revealed that the cave water that fuel the Terrans is the Dweller's Achilles' Heel.
- The first tunnel door the Maltos find opens automatically, but the second takes a lot more time when Jawbreaker, Mo and Robbie charge toward it. This is because Hashtag is unkowingly the one who opens and closes the doors. Becomes a plot point, as the rest of the group realizes way too late that they can't lock the Dweller away with the doors without Hashtag present.
- Paying attention to the lights in the tunnel reveals that they only activate once Hashtag runs by them.
- Homage: The shot of the Dweller leaning in close to Hashtag and extending its...tongue? looks like a tribute to the famous scene of the Xenomorph doing the same to Ripley in Alien³.
- Hypocrite: Starscream left Swindle and Soundwave behind during the prison break and at no point shows any hesitation to do the same to Skywarp and Nova Storm, yet acts indignant and hurt when the other two seekers eventually snap and leave him behind.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Starscream is a selfish jerk, but he isn't wrong when he questions how Megatron hunting down Decepticons and leaving them to rot in prison while Megatron walks free could be construed as Megatron not leaving anyone behind. He's also right in pointing out that the Maltos only know one side of Megatron and that they have no idea what Megatron was like during the war.
- Kill It with Water: The Dweller is defeated for good when Hashtag drags it into a pool of cave water, its Achilles' Heel.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The Dweller feeds off of Cybertronians' energon, basically their equivalent to blood. It's also extremely allergic to the cave water that fuels the Terrans, a creation of Quintus Prime. Since Primes are pretty much Physical Gods, you could say the Dweller's major weakness is holy water.
- Real After All: The Dweller is believed to be just a myth by most Cybertronians. This episode proves it's definitely real and just as dangerous as the myths make it out to be.
- Tempting Fate:
- Nova Storm scoffs at Skywarp's warning that her constant sonic booms are going to cause a cave-in — right before the tunnel starts coming down on her, due to her sonic booms destabilizing the structure.
- Megatron dismisses the Dweller as only a myth when Hashtag tries to tell him about it. Cue the Dweller sneaking up on him from behind.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The Dweller swallows Thrash whole, but spits him out almost right after. Since the Terrans have no energon for it to feed on, they're inedible to it. Not that that stops it from chasing after them anyway for the rest of the episode.
