Five years have passed since the Battle of Chicago and humanity has grown fearful of Transformers. The U.S. military has severed joint combat operations with the Autobots. Cemetery Wind, an elite CIA black ops unit headed by a paranoid agent Harold Attinger and team leader James Savoy, has been tasked with hunting down the remaining Decepticons. While the Autobots are officially granted sanctuary, Cemetery Wind has been secretly hunting down the Autobots as well, believing them to be a threat, and has destroyed most of them. With the aid of the Transformer bounty hunter Lockdown, they ambush and brutally kill Ratchet. Their primary target, however, is Optimus Prime, whom Lockdown personally wants alive.