An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Vallermoore]

Pony Afterlife

SolarTempest gave a big, genuine grin and his eyes were bright when he realized that he would get some Energon after all. Megatron was generous to His people, and fixing those alicorns in place and blasting two of them had been a great success.

On the first day, despite the Decepticon's terrifying reputation and the fact that at least some of their genocides were public knowledge, about two thirds of the ponies came in, because of the promise of good food. Without that, it would have been just a trickle. From the Decepticon point of view, keeping genocide secret robbed them of the benefits of being widely feared. Once it was clear that death was not the fate of those who disarmed and surrendered, more and more come in until only a few holdouts remained, that could easily be captured and/or slaughtered if need be. Within a few days, the ponies would be Decepticon slaves, and the vast majority would be good workers just like on Equestria, since they had good food in exchange. Very few had to be flogged, chipped or outright executed, after a handful of examples were made. Of course, some bots would need to be stationed to catch and chip the small numbers of new ponies that would keep on arriving in the afterlife from deaths both from old age and otherwise in the real world, but it was a well paid and easy job. Badly paid bots might turn a blind eye to certain pony souls after all. The new territory of the Decepticons would prove to be one of the most productive places. Pony souls did not age after all. Because the ponies were so co-operative they would be allowed to celebrate Hearthswarming and take time off on that day.

When baby ponies who had died at birth and child ponies who had died without cutie marks appeared, instead of being chipped, they would be taken to a Raising Centre. As souls could not get pregnant there was no need to sterilize them.

*****
The Changeling Queen bowed and said "From the point of view of a Changeling, the love of a Decepticon is worth a lot because it is so uncommon. It does not leak out, cannot be stolen without at best a grave risk of being blasted, and we are too small to steal it by disguise. If you were to ask say, a hundred Decepticons who have someone or something they love to let us drain just a small amount of love from them, not enough to hurt them, it would give as great kudos in the world of the changelings, and we could trade it with other Hives for all sorts of things-choice captives, information, larger amounts of more common types of love, and other items, or we could consume it at special occasions. I know your Decepticons don't exactly like us, but there is no need to fear us. Also, there might be times when you might need us for spying, as we can pass anti-android checks on high tech worlds. A small amount of Decepticon love is not a large price to pay."

A couple of Genociders watched silently from a while away and hoped Megatron would not ask them to give away any of their love. Surely all the bots close by were silently hoping that it was not them that Megatron turned to. Because most bots had very little love, they didn't like the idea of giving any of it away, especially those who had fought changelings in the past and lost a body to being totally drained. Still, if Megatron asked, they would donate. Saying no to Megatron was a suicidally stupid thing to say.

*****
Amongst the few things of use in Cadence's castle was ; a book of pony informants, a ritual for creating alicorns that most likely really worked, several designs for weapons, and a crown and a book with a strong aura of magic.

*****
The luckless Shining Armour was soon caught and blasted, and his soul ended up in a soul gem.

****
Once Megatron had moved on SteelHard , the former John Ashe, spoke up for Lightning Dust to SolarTempest. "Those alicorns had me unable to do anything but stay loyal to Megatron! I couldn't fire my blasters, move, or call out. Lightning Dust saved me from being forced to do whatever the alicorns told me, and I ask that he at least have a chance to join your gang. He would be an asset to it."
The former members of MasterBlaster's gang finally found SolarTempest from going to the area where Megatron had been and landed and bowed. They explained to one of the nearby gang members that they too hoped that SolarTempest would let them join, as their last two gang leaders were first useless and second untrustworthy even by Decepticon standards. SolarTempest looked them over and looked Lightning Dust over too.

*****
Invisius

The Coltanis were both amused and amazed by Masher using only being clean and the fog of war as a disguise, and getting to sneakily participate in Decepticon life again. Many of them wished they could do that, but even with the fog of war, Coltanis would have been recognized at once and most likely blasted. Most Decepticons still had a very negative view of the Coltani bots who had dared to raid the Metal Planet. Raids there were for Decepticons only. Raids there by foreigners were not tolerated, even if they were robotic. The plans for a new bot type were doing well. It would have Decepticon/Coltani eyes, that were both red and green, and Decepticon blasters and engines, but a Coltani outer skin, that needed far less wax in wet conditions then the Decepticon body, and one or two other Coltani things. The IOPC Decepticons and Coltanis were still the best of friends and no bot had harmed another.

*****
Cybertron

Apart from buying a new body, Loyal Star bided his time and played games. With ordination near certain, it would be stupid to get in some silly fight with another Decepticon and possibly get killed and end up in the Neutral Realm. As a priest, his full name would not be minded by other Decepticons, as it was the sort of name a priest would choose. One thing had not changed since his pony days-he still had a religious calling, only now for a truly supreme God.

*****
MasterBlaster suggested to Buzz that they buy a bot or two from a Scrounger gang who were on their way to a furnace. With his anti-blast mods, he was sure he could win a battle if it all went horribly wrong. He could then offer the bots basic bodies with promises of later upgrades in exchange for loyalty, as an alterative to being sold to a Foundryman.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron was glad to see how happy SolarTempest was to find out that he and his gang would get a decent amount of Energon, but was slightly dismayed that they'd seemed surprised. He had offered a bounty for alicorns, and they'd nailed two, so of course they'd get some. They'd also helped in the deletion of more, so got part of that bounty. While it was true that Megatron was known as the greatest conniver in the Empire, he was also intelligent. He knew that if he stiffed someone out of a bounty in a war, he wouldn't get any help during the next one. It may have been possible for him to win with just him and the Military, but it would be harder than if he paid out promised bounties and incentivized everyone else to jump on in.

~~~~~~~~~~~

When the Changeling queen said what they wanted, Megatron was tempted to say something smartass like that what he loved was to have suckers do work without charging first! A little smile came to his face as he considered actually saying it, but he also thought that they might be more useful if they weren't out there trying to poach his new slaves or mess with his overseers.

"Well...I know that nobody will volunteer to give up anything without a huge tanker of oil in exchange," Megatron said. "My troops would just insist that they would have been fine on their own. Of course, they actually would have been - but anyone blasting in our favor makes things easier..."

Behind the Leader, the Genociders who had been listening quietly slipped backwards and disappeared into the swarms of other Decepticons, as did all of the other Decepticons who had been listening.

"As you can see by the sudden lack of anyone around us," Megatron went on without missing a beat, "this is not going to be a popular order. And 100 rather angry troops aren't exactly something I am eager to have. In this case, I believe it would actually be a better idea to outsource." With that, Megatron turned on his communicator and radioed the headquarters of the ICC. Then, he contracted with the syndicate not to send their own members over, but to have them head to the lower-middle-class areas and recruit those who were eager Decepticons, but who hadn't been in quite good enough shape to go raid. These would be loyal enough to have love for Cybertron and the Nation, but also broke enough to accept a relatively small payment to come on over to this location. As for what they'd be told and how much they'd be paid, that'd be left up to the ICC. The only caveat was that Megatron would only pay enough to supply 100 Cubes per hired bot, and that whatever the ICC told people, they could NOT say that "Megatron said" it. This way, if the syndicate went overboard with the misrepresentation, Megatron could send them back at it while denying the claims.

Needless to say, the ICC didn't pass on all 100 Cubes each to those they hired. They kept half as commission - a fairly steep cut - but since the recruits didn't know what that cut was, they didn't complain. It sounded like a blowoff job, so they soon made their way to Megatron's position.

It turned out that the ICC had told them that they'd get to meet Great Leader Megatron and that all they'd have to do was sit around and let some "weird biologicals" mill around them. This was true, but it left out the important details. When they were informed what the rest of the deal entailed, about 10 turned right around and left - keeping their 50 Cubes, which they had demanded in advance. It would be up to the ICC to try to get the money back - and to send replacements.

Fortunately for the Changelings, the rest were reassured by the presence of Megatron, their own numbers, and the nearby presence of the Decepticon Military. They knew that if the Changelings decided to try to get more than they'd bargained for, they would end up feeling the love of battle as everyone opened fire on them. Just to be sure, some reminded them of how easy it would be for the current 90 Decepticons to enforce the limits of the deal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon enough, many work sites had been set up and the ponies were at work. Most of them didn't need to be chipped, which made things much easier for the Decepticon government and better for productivity. Chipping often decreased productivity at least somewhat because a chipped slave couldn't use his or her own mind to come up with better ways to do things, so it was best reserved for those who wouldn't have worked much (or at all) without a chip. Chipping was also used on general goof-ups who would have continually screwed things up without specific controls placed on them.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The ponies who had gone into hiding were, at first, relieved to see that Carjack and the Genociders weren't quite as vigorous in their extermination efforts as those who had come from Equestria remembered. The Genociders quickly eliminated anyone who made a stupid move, such as walking openly through the streets as if they could just ignore the Decepticon work registration directive, but those who used some due caution seemed to be left alone. What they didn't realize was the reason for this seeming laxity.

A few days later, the first clues began to arrive. Flotillas of cargo-bots, carrying completed panels of Planetary Steel, began to arrive. Some of the bots also carried dismantled giant bulldozers, which were assembled upon arrival in the Pony Afterlife. As this happened, big Constructicons took carts to some of the work sites, which turned out to be gravel quarries rather than ones dedicated to getting ores. There, they piled up hundreds of tons of gravel and took it to where the cargo-bots were landing.

Soon, the ponies who thought they were safe hiding in buildings found out that the reality was nothing like they'd hoped. Decepticons mounted the bulldozers and began to flatten the cities. Swaths of several city blocks were taken out with each pass - and along with them, the hidden ponies and would-be insurgents within them. Once the rubble was removed by other Decepticon-scale heavy equipment and robot laborers, the gravel was laid down and mechanically tamped into road-bed format. After that, the panels of Planetary Steel were laid down and expertly welded into place. As this happened, the hidden ponies who weren't in the way of this phase of the project realized the truth: The Decepticons weren't bothering to send Genociders after them because they were going to simply pave over anything and anyone in the way.

Getting out of the way was still an option now, at least for those who were aware enough to realize the danger in time - but eventually, there would be nowhere left to hide. In the end, the only places with pony food or water would be the single sector left natural, and that sector would be heavily guarded - and entirely dedicated to slave labor sites. Then, they would have to surrender, or else die of thirst or hunger. The plan wasn't nearly as hostile-looking as sending the Genociders to kill every last hidden pony, but it was far more effective - and unyieldingly efficient.

After the first part of the Decepticon Forward Base was constructed, the rest of the work would be done using materials from the Pony Afterlife. This initial work - done with Cybertronian materials and equipment - gave the chief commanders of this realm a comfortable camp to live in, with proper metal ground and buildings, a good Energon vault, and enough security to make relaxation possible. It also provided a place to store the heavy equipment needed to get the rest of the work done quickly, a place for cargo-bots to land, and a base for standard military operations like communications and patrols. Finally, it contained essentials for using Afterlife materials, such as a foundry to refine the metal, a variety of manufacturing plants, and a big Energon refinery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

SolarTempest had no qualms about allowing Lightning Dust to join the gang. He had shown that he was a very good fighter - able to cause significant damage even to alicorns. The other arrivals, however, were unknown to him. "What can you offer us?" He demanded of the ex-Fists. "You know a raid gang isn't some public project! In order to join, you'll have to bring something other than brute force, or else we'll become mediocre." SolarTempest told them stiffly, turning his head just slightly to the side in a negative way. He knew that no serious gang accepted just any random that showed up, but instead, had standards that had to be met. He also knew that the most successful gangs - the IOPC, and then the ICC - had the strictest standards of all. While his gang wasn't yet big enough to be as picky as the syndicates, he certainly wasn't desperate for members, either.

~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, those assigned to examining Cadence's castle had everything that seemed to be of interest. The book of informants was copied, with one copy going to Combined Intelligence, one to General Carjack (with the order "you know what to do" handwritten in by Megatron), and one to Megatron. The original was taken to a vault. The weapons designs were copied and the copy given to General Shockwave so he and the rest of his bureau could determine whether or not they were worth further interest. The crown was first taken to a research asteroid, where it would be tested for enchantments. If it was found to be clean, it would go to the Decepticon National Archives as high-grade war booty. The ritual book was read by Leader Megatron and memorized, and then, the physical copy was destroyed by his fusion cannon. He wasn't about to let THAT have ANY chance of leaking. Finally, the other book was taken to a Bureau of Paranormal Research asteroid for further investigation.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

After several days, the general population - including the Priests of Megatron - began to filter back to the home world. Most hauled carts of loot, but a few showed the signs of unfortunate results instead. The overall atmosphere was one of hearty celebration, and music began to fill the streets. Loud clangs came from dancers, and the most creative of these realized that the noise itself could be turned into music. They tap-danced with surprising agility, though only a few managed to do so without looking silly in the process.

Finally, things calmed down, and that's when Loyal Star got a physical message delivered by a young member of the First Temple. He was to report to the Temple the next afternoon. The official notice specifically noted that he would be expected to arrive in "like-new condition, as befits one intending to serve the Great Leader as a direct representative." This meant that he needed to strip off his old wax and apply 10 new coats, fully buffed, and install new foot treads. Of course, if his current body was new enough for its original detailing to still be perfect, he wouldn't need to do these things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When MasterBlaster bought some bots from Scroungers, he found out to his amazement that the captives would not take his deal. They claimed that it was better to face their fates at the foundry than to "lower themselves" to being raiders! The common belief that people who ended up in bad enough shape to lose to Scroungers were un-Decepticons who refused to raid or connive was, apparently, completely true.

This greatly aggravated Buzz, who began to buzz at them with fury. Almost immediately, their internal circuits, already barely working, broke apart and they deactivated. "Then foundry metal you shall be!" He yelled at the carcasses. He turned to MasterBlaster. "I think we should look for some who aren't quite so bad off," he said. "Ones who are poor, but only because their last raids failed on them rather than because they're coded out of glitches!"

After a little thought, MasterBlaster remembered that some poor bots would tap Megatron Energon pipelines to stay alive. This was a mild act of theft, but it at least was one, and indicated a willingness to raid. They made their way to a low-class area where pipeline guards were conspicuously absent. This would be an area that was known to be loyal to Megatron, hence his tacit allowance of their low-volume withdrawals.

~~~~~~~~~~

After everyone had gotten back and settled, the modern mass-production machines would, themselves, be produced. Once that happened, it would just be a matter of moving them to the factories, and new Decepticons would start to be factory built for the first time in centuries. More information had come from Leader Megatron: After a few initial test runs, the factories were to produce one billion (1,000,000,000) new bots. This would allow the Pony Afterlife to have a standing army of the same number without resulting in a long-term drawdown of home world population or military strength.

~~~~~~~~~~

Invisius

The mood was good as the new oil was refined into decent Energon. It would fuel many more iterations of technological upgrades, bringing them much closer to the standard of living they were actually accustomed to.

Later, as Masher was looking over the plans for the new race they would create, he pointed at the eyes. "We gotta come up wit' a betta kinda eye panels," he said, jabbing a finger at the red-and-green design. Dese look like Earthian traffic lights! Green fer go, and red fer stop." He paused for a while. "If we mix da colahs, it'll make yella since it's bein' done wit' light. Dat's not intimidatin' enough. How's about dark purple or some'tin else completely different~? Obviously we can't use blue." His lip curled at the very thought of blue-eyed robots.

"Da rest is lookin' pretty good. Soon, we'll have upgraded our stuff enough to put dese plans inta production."

[Vallermoore]

Pony Afterlife

It was just as well for the Changeling Queen that the advantages of friendly changelings outweighed the basic Decepticon desire that ran in most Decepticons to refuse to pay for things. A small amount of Decepticon love however was not a large thing to ask for. Decepticons, despite being huge war machines, were capable of moving quietly when needs be, and they backed away in a big circle, worried that otherwise they would be ordered to drop their anti changeling shielding and open their small love stores to changeling raiding. Rather then order Decepticons to do that at fusion cannon point and cause resentment of the Supreme Leader, Megatron preferred to pay a few of the huge numbers of Energon Cubes he had. The ninety who stayed lighted up their blasters, like a dog might reveal a mouth full of very sharp teeth, and their eyes went dull with annoyance-but they did drop their shielding. The changelings knew they could very easily be killed on the spot, so each Decepticon just had 10% of the deep love for Cybertron and the Nation drained. Fear of instant death was a very good deterrent to uncontrolled love raiding that could harm or even kill a Decepticon who had no spare bodies.

Much later, safely back in their own world, this rarest of rare and near impossible to get love would earn the Red Hive great kudos with visiting Queens from other Changeling Hives. It was the Changeling equivalent of what Megatron's Private Reserve was to Decepticons. Of course some day like everything else in the universe the Red Hive was destined to be taken over by Decepticons, but that would not be soon. True Decepticon allies were placed at the back of the takeover queue.

*****
The unfortunate holdout ponies would sooner or later be blasted, squashed or otherwise dealt with but the rest would be ok, and plenty of ore could come from a place that was now not exactly a Hell, except for the chipped ponies, but not a Heaven either. Only the very best Ponyists in the real world could now reach the as yet not taken over Heaven for the best of the best, the others would either go to Tartarus or to become slaves of the Decepticons. This heavenly ore was tested and found to be somewhat magical.

The informants who still survived were hunted down by Genociders and despatched to the Realm of Punishment, even though it had been other ponies they generally informed on. Perhaps only hackers were more despised then informants in the Decepticon world-view. Domintel could proudly and truthfully say that it didn't employ any informants, as it's job was to prevent corrosion, not encourage it.

The crown when tested under conditions of great care was found to induce a sappy form of romantic love to those within a few feet of the wearer, and given to Forintel to use when spying on biologicals.

*****
SolarTempest had happened to see Lightning Dust fighting against the one kind of sapient pony who could hack an average Decepticon's mind or even slice him into bits with magic as strong as blasters. On top of that, he had saved Steel Hard from being effectively hacked by the alicorns, and if SolarTempest had just one true friend it was Steel Hard. So he was allowed to join, and the gang was now that little bit bigger. For the others, whilst he was not totally refusing them; they would need to show they had something that made it worth it. The fact that in the fight against the ponies Haula's mind boards had been damaged a little didn't help. Near the end one of the last SAMs to be fired had hit him in his robot from, and although the armour from Ultimate Mods had prevented most of the damage, it had been point blank and had cracked two mind boards. Although the damage had been slight, Haula's Etiquette file had been destroyed.

"Well, I can fire Nukes." Nuke pointed out.

"Let us in and we'll give you information about what MasterBlaster said about you," Haula said, grinning.

Whilst SolarTempest didn't love his Coder, he didn't hate him either and didn't want to kill him. So offering information that might if accurate make him have to kill the bot that made him and looked after him when he was too young to look after himself hardly went down very well. Also, unless the threat was a truly dangerous one, which he didn't consider it was, being a tattle-tale nark in this situation was not treason as such, but what it was, was a gross breach of etiquette, like dropping a large piece of dirty oil filter paper in another bot's house and expecting the other bot to pick it up or getting up too close to a bot you didn't know very well.
Decepticons were coded to have a healthy dislike of narks unless the threat they were warning of really was highly dangerous. Haula was in effect extending a middle finger to SolarTempest; hardly the best course of action to be welcomed into his gang.

*****
Cybertron

The Decepticon Nation could feel very pleased with itself and some bots were so happy they were dancing. Loyal Star looked in a mirror and as the body he was in was pretty new and had never yet been in battle it only needed a bit of extra cleaning and some new foot treads. The next morning, in the Decepticon equivalent of one's finest clothes, he reported to the First Temple feeling excited at the thought of being ordained, and hoping he had made it.

*****
Having brought the bots without a fight in the process, both MasterBlaster and Buzz were shocked and angered that the bots refused the offer to join the gang and raid. They had ended up like this because of a refusal to follow the Decepticon Way and were utter failures. Buzz buzzed them apart with an angry "Then foundry metal you shall be! "I think we should look for some who aren't quite so badly off. Ones who are poor, but only because their last raids failed on them rather than because they're coded out of glitches!"

"Let's sell these first and share the Cubes 50/50," MasterBlaster replied. After doing so and putting the Cubes in their vaults, they went to a poor area, Oil Pan. The bots there were very poor, as they had either been conned or too many of their raids had failed, and they were down to their last bodies.

"How would you bots like to join a successful raid gang, with benefits that increase steadily the more raids you do? If you stay loyal for long enough, you will be able to buy new bodies, and if things work well enough I will eventually buy you armour from Ultimate Mods! Do you have any questions?" A large number of slightly rusty and dented bots, whose armour was weak and damaged in places and whose blasters were weak, gathered around them with interest glowing in their eyes.

*****
Invisius

It was great to drink good Energon again.

All the bits of the new planned test body had been tested. Decepticon eyes, engines and blasters were better then Coltani ones, but Coltani bodies were more rust resistant and needed much less wax, which was a big advantage living here. Masher kiboshes the eye design as yellow was not threatening enough and traffic light eyes were plain silly, but purple eyes were found satisfactory. Blue eyes were ruled right out, as there was no way that Autobot eyes would be used. Red Diamond offered to be the first to test the new body, and mind transferred to it whilst the others watched with interest. He made a Save Disc first in case of any unfortunate events.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Changeling Hive

As the Changelings filed out through their portal, the Decepticons appeared to let them leave without further close interest. They didn't notice the tiny mosquito that went through along with them. Once through the portal, it silently made its way through the tunnels. It was completely devoid of love - and in fact, any sort of emotion or cognizance at all - so it generated zero psychically-detectable energy. Soon enough, it found its way out of the hive and into the sky of the wider world these Changelings had come from. Then, it flew about 100 feet up into the air, and began its work: Broadcasting footage back to Decepticon Foreign Intelligence.

It was unlikely that the information would be acted upon soon - Leader Megatron was already a bit concerned about maintaining a goodly amount of troop numbers in each part of the Empire, and would be unlikely to want to invade something else before the replacements were fully matured and ready to join the Military. Even so, no easy opportunities for intelligence were to be passed up, and at the cost of a nonsapient, microcam-equipped "mosquito" and a few terabytes of disk space, it was worth taking a look at another world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pony Afterlife

SolarTempest was momentarily torn. He knew that whatever Haula had heard was likely to be bad, and he also knew that informing before he had been accepted as a member might even be illegal. Yet, he also knew that turning down potentially-bad information could allow him to be blindsided and even killed due to lack of preparation.

"Spill it, and tell me how you know him, too" he ordered, dreading what would come next yet wanting to be ready for any potential attacks. He knew that his Coder sometimes acted glitched and had even had some major repairs done by Debugging in the past. He also knew that for some crazy reason, his Coder had apparently gotten "love" and "foolhardiness" (and maybe "a lifetime of idiotic obedience") mixed up, and clearly needed to go back to Debugging already. It would not be unlikely, he reasoned, for something even crazier to be running through his Coder's mind.

SolarTempest unconsciously made a harrumphing noise with his engine as he thought back on how his Coder had tried to show up and give him orders after he had a gang - he had even tried to set a destination as if he was the leader of the entire group. Apparently, MasterBlaster had thought he'd coded a fool and a slave instead of a fully-sapient Decepticon! All SolarTempest had done in response was warn him off and then MasterBlaster started acting all weird and pretending he had been wronged somehow! Now he was up to something else bad. If that wasn't the case, he reasoned, Haula wouldn't have any hot information about him - info that he figured SolarTempest should know about.

Even without that in mind, it was never a good idea to rule out the possibility of an attack without first giving it careful consideration. SolarTempest didn't see the offer itself as an intentional insult or middle finger, but instead, as a somewhat annoying bargaining tactic that could be described as "curiosity baiting." Curiosity baiting relied on a target having enough curiosity about a topic to force him into doing something to get otherwise-secret information. This irked him because he knew that if he turned the information down, he could end up winning a Darwin Award - but if he accepted it, he would be seen as having been put over a barrel. Despite knowing how this tactic worked, SolarTempest decided to go for the knowledge. Knowledge was a very useful commodity in general, and in cases like this, could make a big difference in how things played out.

Haula wasn't so glitched that he would spill even one bean without first getting the official acceptance he and the others were seeking. Reluctantly, SolarTempest agreed - with the warning that if the data turned out to be mere gossip or the retelling of a nasty but non-threatening comment, the new arrivals' exit from the gang would come even faster than their entrance. The rest of the current gangsters held back enough to be polite, but their body language showed that they would be ready to go into battle mode in an instant if the deal turned out to be some kind of oil sludge.

Brutal and Nuke looked a bit embarrassed, but they also wanted to get into this large and growing gang. They didn't chide Haula or otherwise try to shut him up. However, they knew that something wasn't right with their fellow raider, and independently decided to recommend that he go to Debugging - but not say anything until after the deal was complete.

~~~~~~~~

Research Asteroid

There was no portal at this asteroid, or any other easy way to get to the rest of the Decepticon Empire. Here, Paranormal researchers looked at the one thing they hadn't examined yet: the mysterious, magical book. "I wonder what this magic is supposed to do," the commented. "Let's test that, and then open it up and see what it says in there. Testing first is important in case it's a curse booby-trap or something else bad."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

Unlike the glitchy captives of the Scroungers, these low-class and poor bots knew a free upgrade when they saw it and also knew that raiding sure beat rusting to death, or worse, ending up as employees.

"You pay the upgrades so we stand a chance out there, and we're in," several of the bots within earshot said. Now, MasterBlaster had the opposite problem of the one he had before. Too many bots of unknown skill levels wanted to sign up! At this point, he had no idea which ones would be worth taking or if any of them would be any good at raiding at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, Loyal Star arrived at the Temple, and was allowed in through the staff door in the back. There, Electron greeted him with a congratulatory smile, but did not actually give the results. Instead, he led him to the chambers of the High Priest.

Inside, the Priest was easy to see sitting behind his desk. His swirling colors were complemented by wing stripes that also swirled, but in shades of red that contrasted with the Energonnish shades of the rest of his body. He seemed as if he was 10 feet taller than the average bot, though in reality, he was sitting in a chair that was placed on a hidden riser to create that effect. Electron quietly bowed, backed out of the room, and closed the door.

"I am Warfire," the Priest introduced himself. "I am the High Priest of Megatronism, second only to our Divine Leader himself. Have a seat."

Loyal Star pulled out one of the chairs in front of the desk, which was made of metal and covered in the finest velvet. The desk itself was inlayed with a wide variety of metals, each of which was from one of the planets that had been conquered by the Decepticon Military. The metal in between the slighly-curved inlays - holding them in place - was Decepticon Steel, the metal that best represented the Nation itself. Unusually, the desk's legs weren't the fairly plain posts that were commonly found on Decepticon furniture. Instead, they were castings of the various species that had been subjugated by the Decepticon Military. Extant species were represented by figures bent over as if in the process of doing heavy slave labor, while the extinct Autobots were represented by a model of a pile of smashed parts.

"I'll get right to the point. We've gone over your test, and despite your strange decision to answer one multiple-choice question with essay answers rather than checking the boxes provided, you have been admitted into the Priesthood. You will begin as an assistant priest. First, you'll be assisting at a small temple on Cybertron as you learn the actual practice of the basics. After you spend three months there, you'll be transferred to be an assistant on one of our conquered worlds. You'll spend at least a year there so you can refine your skills and learn how to deal with a culture that is not truly Decepticon. Assuming you do well there, you'll be eligible to ask for transfer into missionary work. We know of pockets of Megatronists on a few planets outside of our current jurisdiction, and they need guidance on the proper practice of the Decepticon Way as well as education about the true nature of Divine Leader Megatron."

"Before I go on, do you have any questions?"

[Vallermoore]

Changeling Hive

The changelings were mainly happy, despite the gaps in the Hive as not all of them had made it out alive, due to losses fighting the ponies. Their Queen, her red chitin armour polished and gleaming, said "My fellow Lings, we have had a great success. We took a few hundred ghost-pony prisoners who are far better off under us in special cocoons then dead or enslaved, and we were granted a little of the rarest love of all, the love of those fierce war robots who go by the name of Decepticons. We must stay on their good side. One day they may indeed come after us, but as allies, that will be a long while away. Whilst if they hated us, they would come within days. Now our Hearthswarming Ceremony in a few days time will be glorious indeed. Let's decorate." The lings would decorate the Hive, but for now at least, there would be not much interesting information from a Decepticon point of view to gather, although this might change in time.

Pony Afterlife

"We first knew him after deciding that our previous gang leader was no good after too many failed raids. He joined us and wanted to be leader and managed to defeat all of us in a non-fatal arena battle, even though I did manage to rip his head off. He then went to Ultimate Mods-yes, that shop, got us fancy armour, and himself fancier armour and made himself blaster proof. When he gets blasted, that fancy armour just absorbs the energy without damage, so you could all be blasting him and he would just eat the energy. He also got blasters that are far above Standard blaster level-almost to High General grade. Anyway, he led successful raids for us, but we left him when he said he wanted to kill you. Not just blast you, kill you."

" When we asked who you were and why he wanted you dead, thinking you must have really angered him, he said it was because you rejected him and nearly blasted him when you reached full sapience. He is a rich bot, and is upgrading at a fast rate. One day he might be almost as armoured and well-armed as a High General, and have got a gang of his own and upgraded them. If he then comes gunning for you-well, with your bodies and blasters as you are now, he could quite easily slice them in half, and as your blasts would just be absorbed by his armour-he is so cocky and hotdogging that he might come running his jammer and catch you when you don't have the rest of the gang around you. And the next thing you know, you are in the Decepticon Afterlife. Why would he be such a horrible Coder? My Coder and I get on fine, and if true danger threatened would help each other. Yours wants you dead just because you attained full sapience! I'm not full of used oil filter paper. If I was just lying to get MasterBlaster killed and you found out, I'd be foundry food!"

Most of the gang rather loudly suggested killing MasterBlaster or remaking him into an Atari machine.

*****
Cybertron

The bots were considerably interested. Most thought they might never get to join a raid gang again and now here was a rich bot who wanted them. MasterBlaster picked ten of them and said "For now I will get you some armour plating and if need be, fix any engine defects, and after every successful raid, some of my share will be put aside for upgrading you until you have been loyal enough and with me for long enough for a trip to Ultimate Mods! Then we can do vast raids and one day we will have our own mansions-and you will be sub bosses over an enlarged gang as I one day hire all of you bots here who want me as your gang leader." That earned clapping and some cheers. Soon enough, MasterBlaster's bots were at least upgraded enough to raid easy and perhaps lower-middle rank targets and he checked the Raid List for ideas.

First Temple Of Megatron

If Decepticons had tails, then Loyal Star's would have been flicking all over the place in excitement. From when he learned that Princess Celestia had been defeated, he had decided that whilst he had not lost the desire to be a priest, he wanted to serve a true God. Shortly before he had set off to the Temple, his mind boards had dredged up a memory from the past (flashbacking whilst walking or flying might be dangerous and cause a crash and/or a fight.)

Megatronist Temple, Vallermoore

Loyal Star had spent hours agonizing about changing his religion, for any proper priest something not lightly done on a whim. He decided that since his own alicorn goddesses were dead, he should worship the true god who conquered them. He took out his priestly robes and cut the Sun and Moon insignia out, sewing Decepticon Seals on instead. His Bishop would be at the church today, and he knew what would happen to him-a certain defrocking and excommunication from Ponyism. No pony priest or priestess would let him confess his sins, marry him, let him into their temples, or bury him in any Ponyist graveyard with the customary funeral rites.
He would never be allowed into a Ponyist pulpit again. After leaving the Church, he decided that he needed to find out what Megatronism was. He couldn't just start preaching it as he had no idea what was orthodox and what was heresy. He wanted to start with the basics and earn a position as a Megatronist Priest, whatever that might take. So when he found out there was an open Temple of Megatron in Grand City, he knew where he was going.

The Temple was amazing and so was the Priest of Megatron-an open Decepticon in multi-coloured paint, blasters on his arms, and like all open Decepticons, red eyes that glowed with the light of robotic life. At the moment they were neitrher bright nor dim. When Loyal Star heard his very first Megatronist sermon he knew what he wanted to be, and after the service he approached the Priest.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, you can. I used to be a Priest of Ponyism, but I renounced my religion in favour of yours and they defrocked me. I want to some day become a Priest of Megatron like you, but I want to go about it in the proper way."

The red eyes brightened notably and the engine note changed to a purring. "Well, let's talk in my study. I'm Fire Eater, and you?"

"Loyal Star."

*****
That had been the start that had brought Loyal Star here, and soon he found himself in front of the Decepticon equivalent of a cardinal, the High Priest, who went by the name of Warfire. One of the desk legs was made so it seemed to be held up by human slaves, one by changelings, one by ponies and one by Coltani bots, and it was covered in the finest velvet. When he heard that he had passed, Loyal Star's eyes brightened with joy and his own engine note changed. "Do new Megatronist priests have a formal ordination ceremony? If they do, I was hoping to ask Fire Eater if he could come and see mine. He would be so proud of me, I'd never have made it without his help and guidance."

Loyal Star smiled as he knew that he would now be able to do what he wanted to do most in the universe, and that assuming all went well he could once fully trained become a missionary and also help Megatronists who were not entirely sure what Megatronism meant.

Research Asteroid

The bot knew that if this book was a spell book, reading it aloud could have unfortunate results. Unlike nearly everywhere else, this asteroid was off limits for bugging, because here secrets were often found that should not get into the public domain on Cybertron, secrets that even Domintel was not supposed to know. The book turned out to be a spell book, of the most powerful pony magic. The first spell was one to turn other beings, even robots, into ponies. The researcher shuddered a little at the thought that a proud, powerful Decepticon could be turned into a weak little sapient pony. No way could this get out, or bots would start turning their Decepticon foes into ponies and stepping on them. And what if it worked even on Leader Megatron? The researcher shuddered again.

The second spell was used for moving stars, planets and black holes. The researcher's eyes darkened as he remembered the holovision news of the black hole sweeping towards Cybertron, and how it nearly crushed the entire Metal Planet. Losing that would have been a tragedy and would have made every bot homeless.

The third spell was useful-it was a portal spell for getting onto the surface of planets even if they were many light years away. Even the most powerful planets could be brought down using this and the Decepticon Military.

The fourth spell was one for causing friendship. The researcher, a bot named Reader, radioed his superior to ask for special permission to cast it on another in a controlled environment and it was granted as long as no harm was done and the spell was cancelled at the end of the day, and that the bot consented. He cast it on a consenting bot that was not a foe but not a friend, just a work colleague. "Alpha, we are the best of friends, aren't we?"

"Oh yes." Alpha lightly pressed his hand against Reader's. In Decepticon terms, this was extremely intimate and in fact was very rarely done except between bots who knew each other very well and had just done something like help each other out of danger, the equivalent in human or pony culture would be a big kiss on the forehead.

"Please could I have a key to one of your vaults to borrow a couple of Energon Cubes?"

"Oh yes, anything between friends."

Even bots who were best friends never did that, ever. Even Coders and their juvenile bots never did that. That was asking to be robbed or worse. Soon enough Reader had got into Alpha's vault but didn't steal anything, as this was strictly for research. Thoughts of amazing power came into his mind. With this spell he could become a master thief, could make large numbers of bots join him in a mighty gang and fight by his side, could get greatly resduced payment rates at shops by casting it, and...and what if he was to cast it on a High General? If he cast it on General Soundwave, he could manipulate him and use Domintel as his own personal secret police force. If he cast it on Connect, he could use the ICC for his own ends. He decided in that moment that he would commit treason, and after telling Alpha to keep his new friendship a secret, he memorized the spells and locked the book in a safe, and flew to Decepticon Headquarters, where he requested a private meeting with General Soundwave. Once there, he cast the spell, and it worked! Even the powerful, clever and virus protected mind boards of Soundwave were hacked in an instant.

Several miles away, General Carjack sensed that dark magic had been cast, although he didn't know on who or where. It would take him a few hours to use his own magical powers to locate the source of the magic.

For over three hours, Reader made use of his new power. Two bots that he disliked were executed by Domintel-and these bots had never even considered treason. All sorts of classified information that not even a security-cleared bot at Reader's level could get was now opened up to him. He had plenty of time to plot and to plan. He would have Domintel bring Connect to him and effectively take over the ICC. He would have Soundwave call in the other High Generals one at a time and soon they too would be his *best friends*. He would not try the spell on Megatron as Megatron could surely resist it, but he could use the High Generals to subtly influence Megatron, and he would be the power behind the throne to a point. Alas for him, he would not have the chance to do this, as General Carjack finally magically tracked the spell to it's source.

Carjack was shocked. General Soundwave, head of Domintel and Forintel, had been hacked as if he was a common bot who got a slave virus forcibly inserted, and was now the "best friend" of an up until now fully loyal bot named Reader. His first thought was to mentally armour himself up and go out there to take Reader down, and to bring the Genociders with him, but if he did that Reader might easily find out and set the whole of Domintel on Carjack, causing a huge fight that even the Genocide Battalion might lose. And what if the magic could even hack him too? It was unlikely, but possible. Instead he took his scrying crystal that Loyal Star had given him and went to the one bot that surely was immune to the magic-Leader Megatron. Soon with the aid of the crystal he was explaining to Megatron what had happened. "As this crystal shows...a formally loyal research bot called Reader has hacked High General Soundwave using a very powerful pony spell of "friendship" and taken over all of Domintel and Forintel! And if we don't stop him, he will do that to all the other High Generals too."

Having told General Soundwave to take all the bugs from one room, Reader was pacing up and down in it talking to himself, thinking he could not now be spyed on since the bugs had been deactivated. "I think I will have Thundercracker and Shockwave brought here first, and then Connect and his underboss, and then a few others. And I will live a life of luxury and hidden power, with all the leading bots below Leader Megatron under my friendship spell as my very best friends. Hahahahahaha!"

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

By the time Carjack had pinned down the problem and escalated it to Megatron, Domestic Intelligence had already launched an internal investigation.

It had gone through their system that an execution order had gone out to the troops in the area of two bots who, before now, had no treason flags on their records. The Supercomputer had instantly flagged it and sent copies to 10 of the top commanders, excluding Soundwave, whose secure hash was the one on the order. This caused two things to occur right away: First, a halt order was immediately sent out to the relevant Military outposts, noting that the veracity of the first order was in question, and stopping enforcement action before it could begin. Second, spies were set on General Soundwave to try to determine exactly what was up and who really needed blasting for malfeasance and fomenting rebellion. If it turned out that Soundwave himself needed it, the agency would send that recommendation to Leader Megatron with the secure hashes of several of the higher-ups backing it up.

When Carjack found the perpetrator, his initial thought was to go blast him. He wasn't afraid of DomIntel attacking - he was confident and pissed-off enough that the thought didn't come to mind, and he would have even been caught by surprise if Soundwave's division had showed up to attack. However, he knew that Soundwave was surely in need of Debugging now, and figured that it'd be a good idea to tell Megatron so that the leader knew that whatever Soundwave had been tricked into doing was the hacker's idea.

Megatron wasted no time in acting when he saw what was going on. Immediately, he used his divine power to put a shield around Soundwave. This blocked the spell's connection to its caster, and since certain other tricks had not been done, this essentially deactivated the magic as long as the shield was up. Then, realizing that any sort of obvious physical assault would lead to a magical defense, Megatron used his own divine power to short out the leads between Reader's motherboards and his batteries. In an instant, the traitor was as shut off as a PC in a power failure, though he was not killed yet. The killing would come in an official execution, after certain precautions were taken.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once Reader was offline and Soundwave was shielded, Soundwave immediately realized that he had been messed with and charged out, blasters hot and ready to go, to delete the hacker. By the time he got to Reader's last-known position, however, Reader was already gone. It didn't take much to find him - DomIntel agents saw him and pointed him down the hall to the "technological interrogation" rooms. There, Leader Megatron was already reading Reader's Code off of a screen. The hacker's boards, readable but offline, were stacked in a board cage that provided just enough power for the code read and kept them from bumping into each other. Megatron's left hand held a glinting, nasty-looking chisel perilously close to the helpless electronics.

"Report to Debugging immediately," Megatron ordered, looking only briefly in Soundwave's direction. "We need to be sure that all traces of that interference are eliminated." Megatron waved a hand at the boards. "I've already taken this nasty traitor offline. I'll be taking care of the interrogation myself."

"Yes, sir," Soundwave responded, both glad to be free of the hacking and irked that he wouldn't get to interrogate the scumball himself. Soon, he disappeared down the hall.

As soon as Soundwave left, Megatron made sure the room was still private and continued with the code-read. Soon enough, the text of the book scrolled by, and Leader Megatron memorized it while considering what kinds of things he could get up to with it. Then, he explicitly looked for the location of the book, and once found, he resolved to go blast it into atoms himself so no one else would get tempted by its contents. Reader's memory yielded up the data with no problems since he wasn't conscious to do anything about it.

Finally, after getting all of the data he needed, Megatron first used software commands to delete the information from Reader. Then, he used the chisel to physically destroy the parts of Reader's memory that had held it. This double destruction all but ensured that Reader wouldn't know how to do anything magical once he was brought back online. Just after this, Megatron picked up a small roll of solder and a soldering iron, and began to go to work on the complicated, upgraded mainboards of the once-respected scientist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Main Foundry

When Reader came back online, his fate was already sealed. He quickly recognized the area, but it took him a moment to realize what the bird's-eye view meant for him. Soon, he felt mild heat at his feet, and he knew: He was suspended above the Main Pit. The Decepticon High Generals, minus Soundwave, were looking on. Leader Megatron's angry presence at the edge of the Pit meant that there was no point in trying to appeal.

Cameras focused on Megatron as he personally made the announcement. "For the crimes of misusing classified information to attack a high-ranking official of Domestic Intelligence! Attempting to pervert the purpose of Domestic Intelligence! And finally, for attempting the overthrow of the Decepticon Government! This traitor scum, Reader, is hereby sentenced to 15-hour slow meltdown with full awareness of the entire process!" Each charge was shouted as a separate exclamation, and at mention of trying to overthrow the government, Megatron's hatred and rage were especially prominent.

As soon as Megatron finished speaking, Reader felt the jerk as the pulley holding his chain began to allow it to unwind. Progress toward the boiling, white-hot steel was excruciatingly slow, and as Reader feared, his attempts to turn off his pain sensors or mentally escape into a full-immersion virtual reality game were all blocked. He would have no choice to not only feel himself be turned into molten metal, but do so with no hope of blocking the signals with the effects of another program. Already, what had been a mild heat seemed to be very hot and getting hotter.

While Reader looked down at the reporters, whose cameras were now focused on him, General Soundwave came in through the foundry's huge double doors. Reader knew that no matter how well the spell had worked before, it wasn't working now. Soundwave's eyes glowed like hot charcoals as he regarded his enemy, with both bright red heat and dark specks showing at once. Soundwave took a position with the other High Generals, making sure he got a good view.

Just when Reader thought it couldn't get any worse, two more bots came in. These looked very smug, like one does when an enemy gets his comeuppance. They were the two that Reader tried to have killed and were spared by the Supercomputer's excellent double-checking algorithm. The two crossed their arms and looked up at the doomed bot with satisfied grins.

Back at Domestic Intelligence, the investigation into Soundwave was closed. Megatron had called it off after examining the traitor's code. Now, the backup investigators watched the holovision, where the true traitor's execution was being broadcast. All channels would show the beginning and the end of the government action, though only one station would show it in its 15-hour entirety.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later, once Reader was fully deactivated, he would find that his soul didn't go anywhere. Instead, it would stay with his metal - metal that would be taken to a far-off asteroid and be buried there. Leader Megatron activated divine magic of his own and added a spell that would transfer Reader's soul to the Realm of Punishment if the condemned ingot was ever found and taken off of the small, barren rock.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pony Afterlife

SolarTempest agreed that his Coder would either have to be killed or dragged into Debugging. "He's still claiming I 'rejected' him! That's such nonsense. What I rejected were his attempts to take command! If he doesn't realize that he was in the wrong and still is, his code must have degraded entirely into glitches. But I doubt that he really doesn't realize it. Lots of people act like it's the other guy's fault when their crap doesn't work - It's just a lame way to try to make their target go soft and fall for rot! Either way, we must ensure that he is never a threat to us again!"

He turned to Haula and the others. "Okay, you guys are in." Turning back toward the rest, he said, "We must grab our stuff and go back to Cybertron right now. We're no broke peasants either! Our first stop after we leave our oil in our vaults will be Ultimate Mods!!"

SolarTempest and his now-bigger gang took off with their cargo-bots and tankers. Instead of stopping at the Raid Dropoff Point along with the huge horde of other returning Decepticons, they would leave their loot as raw crude and store it that way. This would save hours of time that would otherwise be spent standing in line, and let them go straight to Ultimate Mods. The entire gang thought that this was a good idea - no one knew whether MasterBlaster would attack or when, so they didn't dare waste any time. SolarTempest, at the least, would need to equalize his power as soon as he could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oil Pan

Getting new gang members had been easy after MasterBlaster and Buzz looked in the right place. Now, the 10 new additions followed the first two to the parts shop, and then to MasterBlaster's mansion. It was assumed that they would either do the work themselves, on each other, or that MasterBlaster would do it. The idea of hiring a mechanic when there were 12 qualified ones among them didn't even come to mind. Unlike humans, who would hire others for such simple tasks as cutting their hair, Decepticons were quite comfortable with their own bodies and doing the maintenance they needed.

Later, once everyone was running, MasterBlaster looked at his copy of the Government Raid List. Before long, he spotted a planet that was far off- about 50 lightyears away. What was notable about it was that it was listed as an IOPC property. With the IOPC gone, that meant that it could actually be wide open. A picture of a strange lifeform, with four arms and two legs, accompanied its listing. The lifeform had a uniform and a weapon about the size of a pistol. It was unlikely that this gun was able to do much, considering that its planet had been designated as a full-on IOPC property. That said, there was also the possibility that Masher had worked out a deal instead of fighting, and that newcomers would get a less-than-friendly welcome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First Megatronist Temple

Warfire got out a chip and a laptop, and slid them both over to Loyal Star. "Assuming you have no objections, this will be your first stop," he said. Loyal Star inserted the drive into the computer, and a small temple appeared on the screen. To avoid having the tiny temple end up looking cute, its external architectural style had been changed. Instead of having a somewhat cathedral-like look, it was done in the Brutalist style and looked heavy and almost dark. To some eyes, it was even ugly, but it was bang-on when it came to giving off the vibe that it represented someone who was not to be messed with.

The camera moved inside through sliding doors, and it became clear that there was only room for about 100 bots inside. Still, it had the big carving of Megatron and the scenes of Megatron's greatness. The main difference there was that only the absolute top scenes were built in - there wasn't room for nearly the number that the First Temple had. Fortunately, the inside was much more appealing than the outside, with good lighting and a traditional design.

"As the Assistant Priest, you'll have more duties than the acolytes of most foreign major religions, but you won't get to be the actual boss of anything yet. Typically, the Assistant recites the Example of the Divine Leader - the tale of one of Megaton's life events or conquests. The Priest, on the other hand, recites the part of the Speech at the Founding of the Nation that is relevant to the sermon he'll preach. Of course, the Speech Part, the sermon, and the Example are all tied together to send a consistent message."

"You will also be part of some of the ceremonial aspects. You'll be on stage with the Priest at the Opening Bow, when you two and then everyone else bows to the Icon of Megatron in unison. Also, in the middle of the service, you'll give the command for everyone to sing a hymn. Make sure your voice chip's music generator is good, because in a small temple like this one, you provide both the lead vocal and all of the instrumentals. Upgrade it before you arrive if this part of it sounds tinny. I know a lot of people buy voice chips that are only good at literal voice, but you need one that does everything well."

"Finally, you will be the manager who oversees the cleanup person. At a small temple, that's one bot - usually a fairly downtrodden one who would be in bad shape if not for this job. At the city temples, there's an entire crew with its own manager."

"The town you'll be going to is called Evening's Light. The closest raid dropoff point is a hundred miles away, but it does have a combination bulk Energon distribution point/Quick Drink and a basic parts store. You'll be staying in the Priests' Quarters, which is a duplex. The Priest gets the big apartment, and you, as the Assistant, get the small one."

"One more thing. The Priest there is called Smooth Talker. A bit of an egotist! He's actually a bit of a firebrand, despite the name. But keep your vault key to yourself. He is a proper Megatronist, and can talk you right out of it if you're not careful." As he said this, Loyal Star noticed that the screen on the laptop was now showing a cream-colored bot with dark blue stripes that ended in arrow at the wing tips. A caption identified him as the Smooth Talker in question.

"Any questions?"

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Reader was getting more and more excited about what he would do once he had all the High Generals under his spell, and had no idea that he was being spied on through a scrying crystal until everything went black.

With General Soundwave shielded. the spell upon him was broken, and he quickly realized what had happened. As soon as he did, his engine revved involuntarily in sheer rage, and his eyes became like charcoal, with dark bits to them mixed with a deep red glow. He was absolutely furious that he, the Head of Domintel and Forintel, had been hacked. Rather then get an escort of Domintel bots, he fully charged his blasters and went out to deal with the traitor himself. "Where is Reader? WHERE IS HE??!!! That lousy hacker, I'll kill him!" Domintel bots directed him to the "technological interrogation" rooms, where he found Megatron had already dealt with Reader and was finding out what he had done with a code read. Megatron looked sympathetically at Soundwave for a few seconds and said
"Report to Debugging immediately. We need to be sure that all traces of that interference are eliminated. I've already taken this nasty traitor offline. I'll be taking care of the interrogation myself."

"Yes Sir."

When Debugging shut General Soundwave down, they found that his desire for friendship had been turned up to that found in a sapient pony, and turned it back to what it should be before awakening him. "General, you were hacked and left wanting friendship as if you were a pony-but don't worry, we put all your settings back to the way they should be and added an extra level of antivirus to make it unlikely that you could ever be hacked in the same way again."

*****
Reader woke up and found himself above the Main Pit of the Main Foundry, the traditional place for the execution of traitors. When he tried to get away he found to his horror that he was chained up and his blasters and jets no longer worked. Below him, very unusually for an execution, the High Generals were lined up. Thundercracker, Skywarp, Carjack, and the others were there, except for Soundwave. All had dark eyes and angry revving engines, and Carjack looked if anything even angrier then the others. Looking around for Megatron, he found him there too, and Megatron was absolutely furious. Not only was Reader a traitor, and a traitor who had directly attacked a Decepticon High General, but he was something far, far worse-a hacker. Hackers were universally disliked and despised by all robot life, not just Decepticons. Reader tried to turn his Bravery Up to 100% only to find that it had been disconnected. His blasters, jets and his ability to transform had also been disconnected, and he was unable to mind-transfer either.
"I appeal to Megatron!"

"Such is your right, the only *right* as such that is enshrined in Decepticon law. Unfortunately for you, I code-read you, and found nothing at all to excuse what you did. Appeal denied." Megatron sneered at him in disgust.

Reader tried to turn his pain sensors down but they were firmly soldiered in place so that he could not turn them down from 100%, and all his games had been removed to stop him plunging into a game to block out the fear of oncoming death. Just then General Soundwave come in, his eyes like dimly glowing charcoal, clearly still furious at being hacked, and then the two bots that Reader had tried to wrongly execute using Domintel, instead of the legal methods of either hiring assassins or trying to kill them himself. Not only had he hacked Soundwave, but he nearly had brought Domintel into disrepute, and the fact that he didn't even have a grudge against Soundwave which if possible made his treason even worse. He began to beg and plead for mercy as he got closer and closer to the white hot metal. Although most of the High Generals left at this point, Megatron stayed until Reader's feet hit the metal, and General Soundwave actually stayed until Reader was knee deep and begging like a juvenile for his Coder to help him, when he was not pleading and wailing for someone to at least blast him rather then let him die like this.

When he did die, many hours later, he found to his utter horror that his soul was trapped within the metal ingot that was all that remained of his carcass. Megatron said as he left him on an asteroid "Here you will stay, you worthless traitor, to think about what you did. And if your Metal, which was stamped with the word "Traitor" is ever collected, your soul will go to the Realm of Punishment." He was left, unable to speak, move, see or play games, with nothing to do but think about how he had been so utterly stupid and forfeited everything for a few hours of power.

*****
Ultimate Mods

Ultimate smiled when so many customers entered his shop at once. "Welcome, welcome. What would you like to buy? I have all sorts of weapons and armour; everything that is not legally classified is here. If you want more peaceful things I have all manner of lights, games and mods in general." Some shopkeepers might worry about being robbed; Ultimate felt sure he could reduce any bot below the level of a High General to scrap metal very quickly with his fifty blasters, if need be.

Oil Pan

After everyone was ready and upgraded and MasterBlaster had noted down three other planets, two with life and one dangerously near a black hole, in case the ICC had taken his target planet over and made it too well guarded to mess with, he led his new gang of himself, Buzz and ten more bots out to the new planet. For the first time he had a large by Cybertronian standards gang, although their armour was not the best and only he and Buzz had other bodies to go to if need be.

First Megatronist Temple

Loyal Star asked politely "I do have a question. Where do I go to get the paint covering of an Assistant Priest please? Once I have the Decepticon equivalent of priestly robes I can use my full name of Loyal Star in conversations and no bot would mind as it is the sort of name a Priest of Megatron would choose to name themselves." He was feeling very pleased with himself. Working his way up to that of a full Priest did not bother him as he had done exactly the same as a Ponyist priest long ago. And he would not want to risk bringing Megatronism into disrepute through ignorance and trying to cut corners. Whilst he doubted genuine mistakes would lead to execution, it would be a personal disaster for Loyal Star if he was defrocked.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Ultimate Mods

The obviously-allied group of raiders was greeted warmly, and only those who knew him would realize that it was uncharacteristic for Ultimate to be displaying all 50 of his blasters. To the new customers, he would just be a friendly - but obviously formidable - shop owner and salesbot. Ultimate, of course, was just taking the precautions he normally did when more than five allied bots entered the shop at once. He'd learned long ago that some people had the notion that there would be a point to robbing his establishment. In reality, there would be no point even if they did try - except for some relatively-common bling, Ultimate's mods were custom-made and

SolarTempest wasted no time in saying what he wanted. "Make me more powerful than the leader of the Fists, both in terms of offense and defense," he said. Having been told about their upgrades by Haula, SolarTempest also knew what he wanted to order for the rest of the gang. "They need to be immune to SAMs and the like, as well as Standard Blaster fire. We are likely to meet the Fists in combat, and I'm counting on you to ensure that there is no technological reason that we would not win."

Ultimate was overjoyed to get this order. MasterBlaster, he quickly recalled, had a hugely-expensive upgrade, and the ones for the lesser members weren't exactly cheap either. Now, here was a guy who wanted better, and not only that, also wanted upgrades for 23 other bots! He hated having to tell them that it would take two weeks to do all of the work, fearing that they would get too impatient, but delivered the news in as salesy of a way as possible. "No one can do that many mods faster and have them be any good," he said. "Especially if you want custom work that MasterBlaster and whoever else he picks up can't just buy off the shelf somewhere."

SolarTempest and the others nodded. Soon, the deal was finalized, and for a huge amount of Cubes, the contract was made official.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Space

As the Fists headed toward the target planet, Buzz's mind was busy cooking up machinations. Now, there was an entire gang, and a pretty big one, too. The next step would be to steal that gang from MasterBlaster. He just needed to think of a way to get them to switch their loyalties to him. Thoughts like this were why he had been cool with MasterBlaster's opinion of SolarTempest - Buzz was just as bad or worse. Buzz hadn't built any offspring yet, but that was because he didn't want to create any potential usurpers. Perhaps if MasterBlaster 'screws up' and gets a couple of them killed, he thought silently. He began to consider how he could frame MasterBlaster for causing that or some other extremely-serious form of unfortunate result. While he didn't immediately think of a specific plan, he kept his eyes open for a chance to advance this nefarious plan.

Soon enough, Buzz's backstabbing thoughts were cut off. They had come within view of the target planet. When the gang looked closer with telescopic vision, they could see no organized opposition. Some cities were present, but no SAMs or other advanced surface-to-air weapon systems could be seen.

The gang flew around to the other side of the planet while keeping themselves far in space. There, the prior activities of the IOPC could still be seen, though the derricks appeared abandoned. A large area, approximately the size of France, had been utterly blasted to rubble. City-sized patches of totally-destroyed masonry chunks and piles of glistening white bones were clearly visible. There was no doubt that there had been opposition to the IOPC - and that the IOPC had made devastatingly short work of it. The reason for the area's abandonment was less clear. Was it because the IOPC bots had simply taken all they could and left after the disbandment order? Was it because they had taken everything already, and simply had no more reason to stay? The Fists considered that there might have been another reason, such as the use of an effective superweapon, but there were no robotic bodies in view.

It was unknown whether the other nations on this planet knew that the IOPC had gone away after the disbandment decree, but there appeared to have been no attempt by any of them to take over the now-vacant space. MasterBlaster gave the order to move in, and the gang entered the atmosphere and began to descend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First Megatronist Temple

Warfire smiled at the new Assistant's eagerness, but was also surprised at the question.

"You get your Assistant's Stripes activated at the Assistants' Ordination Ceremony," he explained. "As an Assistant, you get just two parallel stripes on each wing rather than the full paint job. Only after you're a full Priest do you get to have the swirl effect on your entire body. The Stripes do swirl, showing that they're Temple stripes and not just ordinary decorations, so you'll be able to use that name that you've been wanting to."

"About an hour before the ceremony, you are to arrive here, and an already-active Assistant will take you to the painting room. That's where you get your stripes, but when they're first painted, they're just creamy-Energon colored and don't swirl. The swirling effect will be bestowed by Divine Leader Megatron himself during the ceremony."

"The ceremony will take place in just a few days. You and nine other bots will be ordained. One of the biggest aspects of the ceremony is who does the ordaining. Our Divine Leader himself shall accept you. It would not be fitting for the full, official acceptance to be made by anyone else, for that would mean that someone else knew as much about who is a good Megatronist as he does."

"When your test was graded as passed by the Acceptance Committee, it then went to Divine Leader Megatron, who made the final decision. Not everyone whose test goes to him gets in. Sometimes he finds out things about applicants that even we don't discover. But once we tell you that you're in, you're in - so don't worry about that."

It turned out that the ceremony would take place in the First Temple of Megatron - the one they were currently in. Ten new Assistants would be ordained at this one, and each one's part would be fairly short so that they could all be blessed within a reasonable amount of time.

This ceremony wouldn't be nearly as elaborate as might be expected. Warfire would come to the front, instruct people to bow for the Divine Leader, and then Megatron would come out. He would invite the new Assistants - who would be seated in the front row - to the foot of the stage using somewhat flowery language, and they would come there and kneel down. Then, he would go from one to another and bless them by putting his hand on each head and saying a few words. At that moment, their stripes - which would start out stationary - would begin to swirl. Finally, the Assistants would stand up and face the audience so people could take pictures, and Megatron would give an overall blessing before having them return to their seats.

After this was done, everyone would sing a hymn that praised Megatron and wished well for his new Assistants. Then, the ceremony would be over. Of course, anyone who wanted to leave gifts, such as vaults full of Energon, would be welcome to sign them over to the Divine Leader - mainly because Megatron wasn't about to turn down any free loot.

[Vallermoore]

Ultimate Mods

When Ultimate saw so many bots in the same gang, he was very attentive and friendly to them-but at the same time he was careful to display all fifty blasters just in case it was a raid. As he had the very finest non-classified mods on his own body, he was near unkillable by all but the most powerful bots on Cybertron, to the point where he could run a jammer in combat without fearing that he might be killed. At the same time, he was not so powerful that he wanted a huge gang targeting him. As it turned out, he did not have to worry-in fact he would get a very large number of cubes and within two weeks both SolarTempest and the gang would get major upgrades. Of course, SolarTempest would make sure that he was more upgraded then his gang, to avoid a possible takeover attempt. That was just good common sense. His gang was delighted that he was buying upgrades for them. If MasterBlaster had any chance at all of winning, he would need to make a move soon.

Space

MasterBlaster was not even thinking of SolarStorm at the moment, as he flew with a large gang by his side. He had no idea at the moment that Buzz was not to be trusted and was wondering how to take over the gang without being blasted. "I'll fly lower then the rest of you, so that if there are active SAMs or energy blast fire, it will hit my expensive modded armour rather then yours," he told the other bots. "If the very worst happens, my losing a body is better then you losing your lives, as only Buzz has other bodies at the moment. If we can't find anything here or the ICC start popping up, I have two other planets planned. One, named Crematoria, is lifeless, and has a lot of oil, but the day side is as hot as a foundry, whilst the night side is extremely cold. The trouble there is getting the oil out without getting cooked or so cold that your body parts get damaged. There is said to be a triple-max prison there below the surface for biologicals. The other is said to be infested with changelings, but to have plenty of oil ready for the raiding."
He flew just within SAM range, ready to blast any missiles that might be fired up at him, looking for hidden defences, biologicals, other Decepticons and of course, oilfields, oil tankers and the like.

First Megatronist Temple

"I know for sure that being a Priest of Megatron is what I want to do for the rest of my life...between you and I, it is why I immigrated and become a Decepticon in the first place. One thing that is very good about the way things are run here is that hugely powerful and high ranking bots such as you will when it's important enough, talk to low ranking bots like myself. Where I came from, the highest ranking biologicals would not even consider saying so much as a word to those beneath them. Generals would just look at maps if there was a war, and never go to the front line, and the heads or near-heads of religions on Vallermoore would have nothing to do with such things as talking to someone on the first rank of the priesthood. Here Decepticon generals and High Generals lead from the front in battle and share the danger, and Megatron does the same, and if a high ranking bot wants to say something important to low ranking ones, he says it personally rather then send it down through layer after layer of underlings."

He thanked Warfire and was dismissed, and a few days later turned up for his ordination ceremony having brought a high-grade voice chip, and a token gift for Megatron of a few high-grade Energon Cubes. He also repainted his Silver Stripe that he had earned from Megatron for providing the magical tech of the scrying crystal, as he wanted to look his best, and made sure he was clean and waxed.
He could sense the holiness in the temple and the religious feeling that was present even before Megatron showed up. Once he had been ordained, then he would fly to the place Warfire had sent him to. If he did it before being ordained, he thought the Priest might be a bit suspicious of him and think it was some kind of connive, but in the paint of an Assistant Priest (one of a very few paint jobs that were legally protected) he would be accepted on sight.

And then he could be the best Assistant possible and when he had proved himself worthy, would be a full Priest like Fire Eater and a missionary too, doing his bit perhaps in places where the Faith was forbidden and persecuted, where his sermons would be in hidden places.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

For SolarTempest, upgrading was good regardless of what happened next. If MasterBlaster attacked, the larger gang would have no trouble winning with its upgrades in place. If MasterBlaster decided that death didn't become him after all, then SolarTempest's gang would still have a massive advantage over other gangs and any raid targets they encountered. Of course, the upgrades were quite costly - but they had been doing so well that this wasn't an issue. Even so, SolarTempest's mind turned to thoughts of raiding to make up the investment, and hopefully, turn a profit on top of it.

Just as they were walking out of Ultimate's shop with the final upgrade, Haula started to act strange. His speech became choppy, and he didn't seem to quite understand what was going on around him. The severe damage his boards had suffered in the Pony Afterlife War was finally catching up to him, and his system wasn't able to continue compensating since more and more of his traces were losing their connections. Fortunately for the gang, this damage was severe enough that instead of getting delusions or becoming violent, Haula appeared as if he was going to go offline at any moment.

"We'd better get him to Debugging," SolarTempest said with concern. He moved closer and took Haula by the shoulder, and as he led him to the street to walk to the Center, he could smell the scent of burning electronics slowly seeping from his vents.

Ultimate grinned and wished them well as they left, and when Haula's problem became obvious, he made sure to wish them well. "Alas, I don't do mind hardware or Code repairs," he demurred. "But I'm sure Debugging will take care of that."

After they left, Ultimate's head unconsciously tilted slightly toward the ceiling - he was feeling great. A gang of over 20 bots, who were concerned about a battle with another gang that was also his customer meant that he would likely be able to sell several rounds of upgrades to each of them as they went after each other over time. Even if they never engaged each other in battle, they would keep upgrading as long as both sides thought that it was possible for their foes to stand a chance. Gang wars were great sources of wealth for mod shops and similar companies, and when they included his in particular, it could easily add up to a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) Cubes by the time it was all over. Anticipation practically reeked from Ultimate as he did the math in his head.

He popped open a Cube of Supreme and ladled some into a glass. Both the ladle and the glass were made of lead crystal and rimmed with gold. He took a sip and grinned wider. Today had been a good day.

~~~~~~~~~~

Space

The Fists' descent to the planet was uneventful, and soon, they were just above the ground. After some minor circling, the immediate area was scouted well enough to know that there was nothing sapient alive on the surface. The only thing that looked somewhat amiss, other than the general destruction, was the presence of one robotic carcass, slightly rusted and half-buried in sand.

Soon, they landed, and with blasters ready, went over to that carcass to make sure that it wasn't someone just playing dead and waiting for an opportunity to attack. Investigation showed that it was indeed quite deactivated. Once pulled from the sand, it was clear that his engine had been destroyed - likely by multiple blasts from a powerful Decepticon energy blaster - and his boards had been cut up using the traditional blasting pattern. On his wings, the derricks of the IOPC were still visible along with his Decepticon Seals. His face had a permanent "OMG" expression on it, forever showing his emotional response to the last thing he experienced.

"You'd think adjuncts would have learned not to try to embezzle from the IOPC," Buzz commented, dropping his interest in the body.

Another bot came over and pointed at the actual derricks and pumpjacks that were densely scattered around the area. "Do you think we should try to fire up these rigs, or use the portable ones we took?" He asked MasterBlaster.

All around them, eerie silence was punctuated by the occasional whoosh of wind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First Megatronist Temple
One Hour Before the Ordination Ceremony

As instructed, Loyal Star arrived at the Temple one hour before the ceremony was to start. This time, he was led into what appeared to be a garage area that was built into the building like a big storeroom. A Priest was there along with three Assistants who had already arrived. Along one wall, an industrial-type striping machine was set up.

Once all of the Assistants arrived, the Priest had them all stand near the machine in a semicircle. He then put one hand on a big drum of paint that was connected to it by a hose. "I seek the blessing of our Divine Leader Megatron on this paint, which shall soon adorn your new Assistant Priests," he intoned. At this point, nothing appeared to happen. However, Leader Megatron's system - which was ready for this since it was a planned event - instantly recognized that this paint, and only this paint, was to get the swirls when he gave his official blessing later on. If anyone tried to switch with an Assistant and appear at the ordination ceremony with counterfeit paint, it would not glow up and the ruse would be given away. Such connivery was unlikely, considering the fact that Assistants were actual loyalists very unlikely to give up their positions for a bribe, but Megatron knew that there was no such thing as "too careful" when it came to fraud deterrence on Cybertron.

Next, the Priest ceremonially passed his hand in front of the Assistants. "Divine Leader Megatron, may your blessing remain on these, who seek to Assist you in the maintenance and spreading of your religion," he intoned. After a pause, he spoke directly to the soon-to-be Assistants. "You shall enter the stripe painter one at a time. It will automatically apply a stripe of the Blessed Paint to your wings, front and back. Then it will blast superheated air to bake them on." He turned to Loyal Star. "When it's your turn, wait a bit. The machine will have to be adjusted so that it doesn't paint over your current Award Stripe."

"By the time everyone has gotten striped, there'll be about 20 minutes before the ceremony starts. For 10 minutes, you can hang out here, but after that, we'll go upstairs and enter the main area of the Temple. There, you'll take your positions in the front row and await our Divine Leader."

Soon, they took turns going through the striper. It very efficiently applied the stripes and baked them on. Once adjusted for Loyal Star, it painted his new stripe just below the old one. Now, everyone had a creamy-Energon stripe that looked quite soft in tone. For now, the effect was not what one would think of as being very Decepticon. Only after Megatron gave his personal blessing would these stripes become suitably impressive.

Once that was done, the Priest called for their attention. "You may wonder why I sought blessings before you went through instead of just having you wait for the ceremony. It's for security. Blessing the paint differentiates it from any counterfeits that may pop up. And asking for a blessing on YOU ensures that there will be no scandals upstairs. If any of you had failed to receive the blessing, the blessed paint would not have stuck to you. All of you have passed this final test. But there have been times when some did not. It's best to weed out those with misgivings before we're all on interplanetary holovision. I'm quite glad that none of you have failed."

After the 10 minutes passed, everyone filed up the inside stairs and entered the sanctuary through doors at the side up near the front. From there, it was easy to take a seat in the front row facing the stage. The carved Icon of Megatron was already active, and it was smiling benignly with soft red eyes. This was being done with electronics - since the real Megatron was going to be there in person any minute, he saw no need to use his spirit to control the construct.

As the soon-to-be Assistants sat down, they noticed some cameras in the back. A couple were recording, rather than broadcasting live. These belonged to some of the city's top news stations. One, however, showed a little green light that indicated that it was live. The bot behind it had wings that carried clearly-temporary decals identifying him as a camera-bot from the Megatronist Broadcasting Service - the new 100%-religious channel owned and operated by the State.

Behind the front row, the pews began to fill up. Soon, the Temple was packed, both because the religion was still new and interesting and because word had gone out that Leader Megatron himself was going to be officiating.

~~~~~~~~~~

The ceremony started just like Warfire said. He came out, and everyone gave a big bow at his command. As they did so, Leader Megatron walked out from a nearly-hidden side door directly onto the stage. When he gave the command "be seated," which came very quickly, the congregation lifted their heads to a sight of Megatron glowing fairly brightly, but not to angelic levels. Megatron didn't want the sight of himself to be obscured by the glow, but enhanced.

Soon, he had summoned those to be ordained to the front, and they all knelt before the stage in a row, carefully avoiding wing contact (and dents). This display would only be repeated if they made it to Full Priest at some point. Otherwise, it would be the only time one would see a Decepticon kneel to someone else - even Divine Leader Megatron. For this, however, he demanded it. He wanted absolute loyalty, with no restrictions, from those who would officially represent his religion in an ordained capacity.

"Today, you have made the best decision in your life so far," Megatron said, his voice being carried to the rest of the Temple by hidden speakers. "As Assistant Priests, you will perform crucial duties while fully learning the ways of the Priesthood. You shall also have my enhanced blessings, which will make your other business activities and battles go much easier. While you will not be invincible, you will be able to very adequately convince others of the power inherent in Megatronism, and its benefits will be clear to all who are foolhardy enough to challenge you."

"Now, I shall bestow upon you the full glory of the markings of Assistant Priests," Megatron said, beginning to walk from one to another and touch them as he did so. As he paused in front of each one, their wing stripes began to swirl. This brought "ooohs" forth from the congregation, and several congregants stood up so that they could get a good view of one or more specific ordainees. Notably, the ordainees did not keep their heads bowed as they gained their blessings. Instead, they looked up with awed expressions, not wanting to miss the chance to really see their Divine Leader up close.

Soon enough, the main part of the ceremony was over. The new Assistants, now with fully-active swirling stripes, stood up and faced the audience. As Warfire had predicted, many of the people used their optics to grab still images and store them to memory. The holovision reporters made sure to catch this scene as well. After this, they returned to their seats and Megatron delivered a fairly standard blessing.

Then, he sat on a large, throne-like chair off to the side as a choir came onto the stage. He kept a straight face as a hymn of praise was sung to him by the choir and congregation, though inside, his ego was now the size of about two galaxies. Being a god was certainly working out very well, and had already allowed him to greatly expand not only his horizons, but those of the Decepticon Military and the Empire. Actually being worshiped was a wonderful bonus.

After the hymn ended, the ceremony was closed by Warfire and the people filed out. Those who wanted to leave gifts brought them to the stage at this point, receiving a benevolent-looking nod from Megatron - who remained seated on the throne - as they did so.

Loyal Star's next stop would be the small temple far from the big cities, where he would meet its Priest and cleaning guy and get settled in before the next scheduled Wednesday service.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Ultimate grinned when the last of the gang had left. He hoped that neither side would get killed, but instead would be in a state of cold war with each other and needing frequent upgrades. That way he would soon be very wealthy indeed.

*****
Haula started staggering about as his boards struggled to stay online. When they got him to Debugging, he was seen very quickly, as he was clearly very severely mentally damaged, and the Debuggers were soon hard at work on his mind boards to restore him to health. In a normally hyper-capitalist and corrupt society mental problems were treated for free by honest bots, as it was vital for the strength of the Decepticon Nation that the sanity of it's members was protected. It took a couple of hours to fix Haula's mind and bring him back online. He would be grateful to SolarTempest for probably saving his life. "Do you think you should radio MasterBlaster and warn him to stay the hell away, or would that be counterproductive and bring him here before we have our mods ready?" one of the gang asked SolarTempest.

*****
Space/Planet

"I think those derricks might either be booby-trapped or just no longer work," MasterBlaster said "so we should use our own. If all goes well, there will still be plenty of oil down there for us, enough for me to upgrade all of you and for us all to gain plenty of Energon Cubes. But we should be wary as we might be found by the ICC who would want to take this planet and the oil for itself, as it sees the former IOPC territories as it's own." With only one body each, the new bots he had hired were rather jumpy as they started drilling. Whilst they knew they were very unlikely to end up in the Realm of Punishment if they died, the Neutral Realm was a distinct possibility. Soon enough they struck oil and cheered.

First Megatronist Temple
One Hour Before the Ordination Ceremony

Loyal Star was very excited when his stripe went on and it brought old and private memories into his mind boards of when he became a Deacon of Ponyism at the age of only seventeen and was given his robes of white and purple. This paint was special; it was blessed and holy. As an ordained bot, hearing his full name would not make another bot open fire; if that happened only because of the name, with no other reason whatsoever for it, it would be treated as hostility towards Megatronism itself, which was treason. He would soon be in the same room as Leader Megatron. As a pony, he could never have met the Princesses; but as only an Assistant Priest, he would personally be blessed by his God.

When Megatron himself showed up, Loyal Star thought warmly of how lucky he was to have got this far. He had survived hard and dangerous tests, had not died in battle with either biological foes or with other Decepticons, and had served well in the military with only one punishment detail on an otherwise unblemished military record. He had been publically awarded a Silver Stripe for his covert giving of pony magi-tech to the High Generals. And now he would spread Megatronism as well as he had once spread Ponyism as a weak little biological. He had radioed Fire Eater a couple of days before, and Fire Eater had come to see this, as he was very pleased that his former acolyte was now a member of the Megatronist Priesthood. Uniquely, the bots knelt to receive their blessings as a sign of true loyalty. Loyal Star saw that Megatron's eyes were a warm red of happiness and his engine was purring, the signs of a happy Decepticon. And when Megatron touched him the holy paint swirled, marking him out as a Holy bot. Soon enough, after the ceremony was over and he had given his almost pathetically small gift of Energon to Megatron, Fire Eater congratulated him as they walked out together.

"You have come so far since we first met. Now I must get back to Vallermoore and you must go to Smooth Talker as his assistant. One day you will be a full Priest like me, I can feel it in my Metal. Farewell, Loyal Star." Before he went, Fire Eater bowed to Loyal Star to show how proud he was of him. Soon enough Loyal Star had flown to where he would be stationed and entered the small temple where it's Priest was. Giving a bow of respect, he said "Smooth Talker, I am Loyal Star, your Assistant Priest. High Priest Warfire sent me here to serve under you and learn what I still need to learn of Megatronism."

Smooth Talker smiled, with both his mouth and his eyes.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Planet with an Unknown Name

At first, the Fists were ecstatic when their drilling efforts quickly resulted in flowing oil. Soon after, though, some got uneasy expressions, and one of the new ones even readied his blasters as he looked around suspiciously.

"There's no way in the Main Pit the IOPC just abandoned all their rigs, and didn't take all of the oil, unless something interfered with them," this one said to MasterBlaster.

"Not only that, their adjuncts would have come right back here after declaring for Megatron. They'd know that this place was still loaded..."

Before MasterBlaster could say much, the ground rumbled and the air was cut with extremely loud transformation noises. As the Fists looked on, the seemingly-dormant pumpjacks began turning into odd-looking, but tall, robots. Their bodies were very thin, as if made of unarmored girders, but they definitely meant business. How well they'd do at said business with such un-battle-ready-looking bodies was yet to be seen. It wasn't even clear if they were sapient, or just automatic sentries left by the last members of the IOPC. The blasters that popped into ready mode showed that they were, at least, of Decepticon origin.

Now, however, there was no time to wonder about it. The opposing bots opened fire, and the battle was on.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

Debugging

Fortunately for Haula, all of his data was intact - the breaks and cracks in his boards had broken connections, but left the relevant chips undamaged. Even so, Debugging wasn't about to just patch the board substrate back together and just draw new traces - that wouldn't produce a long-lasting fix since there was so much physical damage involved. Instead, they created an entire new boardset and then painstakingly transferred all of the data over. Finally, they took his old personality chip and connected it up to the new hardware, essentially reassembling his mind. Then, the new set of boards was installed in the old body, the Code was checked for bugs, and he was reactivated.

~~~~~~~~~~

Once back outside, he asked about warning MasterBlaster to stay away. Immediately, SolarTempest was shaking his head "no," and the rest of the gang crowded around to hear his reason.

"If we warn him, he'll realize that we upgraded," SolarTempest said. "Then he'll run right over to Ultimate and get another round of upgrades for himself. If that happens, he'll stand more of a chance if we fight, and even if we don't fight yet, we'd have to get a new round for ourselves! That'd get expensive in a big hurry. Neither side would end up having any money left over from raids because it'd all go to this arms race."

"I say we pretend everything is normal, and don't even mention having upgraded at all. Some of the upgrades are visible, but not all of them. Then if he shows up for war, we give him a surprise live demonstration!" SolarTempest flashed his blasters. It wasn't the defensive side that he would be wanting to demonstrate.

"For now, I'm more interested in his whereabouts. Let's take a little afternoon stroll, over near, oh...Founder's Avenue..." SolarTempest said, referencing a street that had a somewhat friendlier DomIntel office on it.

On the way there, the gang made a little stop at its vault. SolarTempest only took out 100 Cubes, which he figured would be enough for such basic information. Then they went to the DomIntel office, and SolarTempest went into the back while the others waited outside trying not to look super-obvious. After "just leaving" his cart in the hall as he waited in a room, an agent came in and quickly asked what he wanted to know. It wasn't long before SolarTempest came back out, and the group walked away silently until well away from the office.

"Seems he's on a place designated as Oil Planet #22w4: Inhabited: Multi-national: Former IOPC: Unclaimed, and is currently engaged in fighting against approximately 100 relatively cheap IOPC droids using a gang of 10. It's 2 lightyears away, which is actually fairly close, but it's in an oft-overlooked system and doesn't see much action. That's all I could get for 100 Cubes, so I don't know if he stands a chance or how the gang is doing. He also told me that he 'couldn't think of just what nations there are there or what they're like' due to being distracted by a need for 50 more Cubes. Since I don't think it's a great idea to raid that while there are other Decepticons there, I didn't pay. So that's what we have."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Evening's Light

Loyal Star quickly flew to the town, but slowed down as he approached so he could get a better look at the general area. The enormous skyscrapers of the city had petered out, and he soon flew over one of Cybertron's once-mysterious blank areas. This space had clearly been redone only recently, and only a couple of shacks - which would have been illegal builds in a nation that had zoning laws - had cropped up at the side of the vacant zone.

After passing this area, small towns came into view. Loyal Star checked his internal map, adjusted his course a bit, and came in low over the town of Evening's Light. Small, but well-kept, homes, many made with sealed copper exteriors, lined the wide streets. They were surprisingly quaint, though their metal construction ensured that an outsider wouldn't forget that he was still on the Metal Planet.

Near the town center, the small square Temple couldn't be missed. The roof had Megatron's face painted on it, and at one corner, a Decepticon flag was flying along with a religious one. Next to the building, there was a large blank metal field, clearly set up to provide landing space. Loyal Star transformed in mid-air and landed on his feet in the typical way, and soon, he was inside.

There was a medium level of energy inside the Temple, showing that while the people weren't all that excited about Megatronism, they weren't against it or totally disbelieving either. Soon, Smooth Talker appeared and the two gave their introductions.

"The congregation here will be your main priority," Smooth Talker said. "Here, many people are satisfied to only raid enough to maintain their bodies and the small dwellings you saw. It is un-Decepticon and displeasing to Megatron for people to be so unambitious. One of your duties will be to regale the people, not in the temple but on a private basis, with tales of great raids and bravery so that they start to want to get in on this action."

"Of course, you'll also need to handle the basic Temple duties, which I'm sure you were told about before you were ordained. During this, you'll get to meet the people as you wish them well on their way out."

"At your first service, you'll be introduced to the congregation. There are only about 100 congregants, and only about 90 are actually obeying the order to show up. Of course, they'll get an ad to come and meet the new Assistant. Needless to say, the main goal is to get them to attend! It is, after all, one of our Priestly Duties to help keep people from running afoul of DomIntel. There are rumors that plans are already in place for Purge of Heretics, and I don't want any of my congregants to end up as Lost Souls." Smooth Talker didn't use the term 'lost souls' in the usual religious sense. He was referring specifically to the possibility that they would end up in soul gems at the Temple of Lost Souls, powering Cybertron's infrastructure until total exhaustion.

It turned out that he had no more information about the Purge he spoke of, other than that the rumors typically indicated that it was expected in roughly 10 years. That, he explained, was often considered long enough for the initial transition to be complete and the obstinate to become apparent.

"Now, I'll give you a tour of this Temple, show you your quarters, and explain your duties more fully."

The tour turned out to be pretty basic. Smooth Talker had a decent-sized office in the back, and Loyal Star would get a small and simple one in which he could store some quick-wax for just before a service. There was a tiny door, just big enough to fit through somewhat sideways. This led to the mechanical room, where the machinery that powered the Icon of Megatron was housed. Out the last door of the hallway was the stage in the sanctuary, from which the Priest would speak and the Assistant would recite his part as well as lead the people in song. Right before this, on the side of the hall, was a fire exit. Notably, there was a small slot that could be opened. This looked as if it could be there to allow someone inside to peek out. "Firing slot," Smooth Talker stated flatly. "I don't expect we'll ever need it, but our Divine Leader has commanded that any installation representing him be fortified and ready for battle at all times. There is more to this. Follow me..."

They went through the last door and onto the stage. Despite its small size, it was quite classy and befitting of a building meant to represent a god. Smooth Talker pointed to the walls, and with closer examination, Loyal Star could see that there was a firing slot above each picture. These were disguised to look as if they were meant to be used as ventilation windows, and sometimes, they were even opened and used that way to help cement the illusion.

"Best to point this out now, so you don't look surprised in front of the people," Smooth Talker said. "This Temple is a Class 4 Fortress. In general terms, it provides about the same defensive power as an extra-fortified upper middle class house of the type the Military encounters when they have to go after a fairly well-heeled traitor. Not military grade, but not your average building, either. The First Temple, on the other hand, is a true Class 1 Fortress: the structure is military grade all the way, complete with artillery and covert on-duty soldiers."

"So, now you know one of the first of the Priestly Secrets of Megatronism, spoken of only to ordained personnel. Every Temple of Megatron is some sort of military installation, fortified base, or in the case of ones like this, a strong safe haven. You must never divulge this to ANYONE who does not bear Blessed Paint. If a foreigner attacks and the population 'runs to the churches' in response, they'll expect that such buildings will provide for only a makeshift form of resistance. It is up to us to make sure that what the attackers actually get is a big fat surprise."

"There are other Priestly Secrets. All I can say about the rest now is that none of them are scandalous. Instead, they are strategic and will provide all of Cybertron with extra advantages, mostly of mundane but unexpected sorts." He paused a bit. "By 'unexpected,' I don't mean flashy and magical. But the sort of stuff that people wouldn't think of unless they were already truly loyal Megatronists. Without that mindset, which some would call 'the right kind of eyes,' the Secrets will remain hidden until it is too late for the enemies of our People and our Divine Leader. As for those who do have the right mindset, they'll know to keep their voice chips off because they'll also understand that deception is a key tool of war."

"Of course, there are a few magical things up our Divine Leader's arm panels, too..."

After seeing the inside of the Temple, they walked outside. Smooth Talker pointed out a large blank area and said that it was used for outdoor gatherings and for a Raid Games youth group sponsored by this specific Temple. There, he told Loyal Star that he would meet most of the people after his first service, and while it was okay to walk around the town and introduce himself beforehand, that he should avoid trying to be authoritative or prying at this point. "Whatever you do, don't act like you think you're DomIntel on a 'mission.' Otherwise, you'll end up getting a tour of the local foundry, Assistant Priest or not. Nobody likes a busybody. Just be friendly and non-threatening, and since you represent the Temple, expect some questions about who you are and what made you decide to enter the priesthood."

[Vallermoore]

Planet with an Unknown Name

As the oil started to flow, the Fists grinned. Their first raid was working out well. However, they would soon find out that this place was not unguarded as one by one, the pumpjacks started to transform into robots that might or might not be sapient. Without speaking, they revealed their blasters and the battle started. MasterBlaster, with his energy-absorbing armour and very powerful blasters, did his best to protect the rest of his gang, jumping in front of them at times, but he was only one bot and could not be everywhere. Whilst the armour of these bots was weaker then those of the Fists, and they fought like juvenile bots did when their self defence routine was triggered, there were a lot of them. It took several minutes of hard fighting, but at last the pumpjacks were defeated. Most of the Fists had light wounds only, but one of them had been killed, and another was on the verge of death. And given that they had no spare bodies to transfer to, death meant death as surely as if Domintel had come after them. Buzz was wondering if he should make his move, when five bots flew over wearing the colours of the ICC and transformed nearby, and they looked absolutely furious at the sight of the Fists. Whilst the Fists outnumbered them, these were ICC bots, and no doubt had the spare bodies that the Fists still lacked.

Cybertron

"If MasterBlaster comes here looking for trouble, we'll leave him resting in pieces!," one of the gang said. "Nobody orders us around...except for Megatron and his Government of course." He hurriedly added the last bit before Domintel started seeing the SolarTempest Gang as a rebel band and acted accordingly. Another asked "Do we need to go on another raid, or can we just relax and play games and have fun for now?"

Haula thanked SolarTempest for saving him.

Evening's Light

Cybertron, a near lawless place, had no zoning laws with the exceptions of things like military bases and the Government District, but if it did have such things, shacks would not be welcome. Soon enough he found the town and thought it very different to most towns. He had no trouble locating the Temple from the air, that flew both the Cybertronian flag, and a religious flag that was similar. When he entered the Temple, he realized that he could sense a certain amount of holy energy, and that it would vary according to how loyal (or not) the nearby bots were. This was medium; the bots here were not enemies of the state and didn't dislike Megatronism, but they were not yet strong Megatronists either.

"When it really comes down to it, our Priestly Duties are to help our congregation prosper in life, and if the worst should happen, avoid the Realm of Punishment in death. I want the congregants to feel that they can like me and that I can help them. I don't want them to dislike me or worse start blasting me."

Smooth Talker revealed one of the first Priestly Secrets of Megatronism, one that he would never have done before Loyal Star earned his stripes.

"It's good to know that if Cybertron is ever seriously threatened, or a large group of traitors were somehow to be able to form, this place is a safe haven. Don't worry, all classified information is safe with me unless someone somehow overpowers me, runs a jammer to keep me in my body and forcibly hacks the information out of me."

When Smooth Talker warned Loyal Star not to act like Domintel, Loyal Star said "Between us, I'm an immigrant who used to be a priest-and emigrated here to join the priesthood of a REAL god-the best god in the universe. I have nothing against Domintel of course-but I joined to be a priest, and I certainly don't want the congregation to hate me. If that happens, I'm doing something wrong. There is a small chance of course of a bot seeing my swirling paint and taking a dislike to me just because of that of course. If something like that was indeed to happen-unprovoked dislike of me, what would you say I should do? Should I blast the bot, or try and find out why the bot has a problem with me first?"

[Victorious Decepticons]

Oil Planet #22w4

The ICC bots immediately started running toward the Fists, easily hopping over fallen droids as they came across them. Once in decent range, one yelled out, "thanks for clearing out the garbage! Now clear out, suckers, because we're taking this field for the ICC!"

Buzz, stocked with two spares and a fairly recent Save, had no reason to be too worried. He raised his blasters, figuring that this could only go well for him. If MasterBlaster didn't order the Fists to attack, Buzz could use that as a way to spin it as if MasterBlaster was a coward. But if he did order the attack, some Fists would likely get killed, and Buzz could spin that to say that the current leader was too brash and unprepared. He was so excited about these ideas that he failed to control his eye-lights, which now glowed with the bright clear red of a conniver in full swing.

MasterBlaster would have to decide soon. With every second, the ICC bots got closer - and the closer the combatants were, the higher the chance of successful hits. Strategically, it was best to keep them at a distance. Even with misses, the superior numbers of the Fists would give them more of an advantage. However, up close where almost every hit was likely to register, the possibly-superior weaponry of the ICC would be able to make up for most, if not all, of the numerical difference.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

SolarTempest graciously accepted Haula's thanks. It was nice to be appreciated.

"Let's wait until all of our upgrades are complete and then go raid," he said in response to the question about raiding right now. "That way, we'll have a far easier time of it. But we will need to go raid - Ultimate Mods are the direct opposite of cheap! We need to set up a gang emergency fund vault and keep it well-stocked. Then we won't have to cut into our personal profits if something like this comes up again."

"In the meantime, we can play some games for now, but we should also start looking for a proper raid list so we can go through it and pick some potential targets. The best list used to be the one from the IOPC, but they're defunct. Still, I'd bet we can buy one of their last issues if we can find someone who has it and is willing to sell a copy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Evening's Light

Smooth Talker wasn't at all surprised at Loyal Star's confession that he was a biological and a former priest at that. "Oh I know," he said, "the First Temple sent me your file. A file always comes before a new Assistant so that we Priests know a bit about the person in advance. We usually get the chance to reject a proposed placement, too, at least at the small temples. Our Divine Leader knows that it wouldn't be good to put two people together who are unlikely to get along. Priestly duels would probably be exciting to watch, but such disunity isn't exactly going to motivate people to convert! So, I am familiar with your general bio and have approved it. Of course, that's not to say that I know you; it just means that nothing banged out as ultra-objectionable."

"At the really big temples, the procedure changes. When there's an entire staff of Assistants and under-Priests, those who don't like each other are just expected to stay out of each other's way as much as possible, or failing that, settle things in private."

"Now, the answer to your question. This is Megatronism, not some wimp peacy-peacy religion. If an outsider violently attacks you for being an Assistant Priest or Priest of Megatronism, you send up a prayer to Megatron as fast as possible. Then you immediately show him the Power of Megatron, which will flow through your blasters. You WILL win. Megatron isn't about to have an official representative lose to some infidel scum."

"If the hostile starts talking trash or being belligerent without being violent, debate with him first if he's intellectual enough to listen to your counterpoints, or argue in the peasant way if he isn't. If you can't get through to him, challenge him to a duel. If he accepts the duel, pray to Megatron like before and show him the power of the Divine Leader in the town's dueling field. We use that big blank area you probably saw on the way into town - this town isn't big enough for a proper colosseum. If he doesn't accept the duel, deride him as a coward, and claim that he secretly fears the power of the Divine Leader after all. This will likely get him to accept the duel since if he's against Megatronism, he won't want people to think THAT. Then blast him in the field. But if he insists on being a coward, he'll lose his credibility."

"Bottom line is that if you get into a fight because of your position, and the other guy started the argument or violence, you're covered."

"Be careful, though, Megatron is not happy if a Priest or Assistant goes out and starts trouble. Remember that the Religion and the government are intertwined, so you must always be careful not to do things that would foment resentment of the government or incite dissent and rebellion. If you have a personal beef that requires you to go blast somebody, put a decal over your Stripes so that it's obvious that you're acting as an individual citizen. It is, of course, always legal to blast your enemies - Megatron would never deprive a Decepticon of that basic citizen's privilege. You just need to follow that basic rule when doing it. Also, always send up a prayer to Megatron before a fight, whether it's official or private. You won't be guaranteed the win as a private citizen, but a bit of divine favor never hurts." Smooth Talker smiled at the end.

[Vallermoore]

Oil Planet #22w4

MasterBlaster noticed the clear eye glow in Buzz's eyes, but he didn't have the time to deal with it for now, and also thought it might be directed against the ICC. Since his Fists outnumbered the ICC bots by ten to three, he decided that to run would be cowardly. He spoke covertly through his radio to the other Fists. "Stand firm and blast them, Fists. And since you have only one body each at the moment and my body is blaster proof against all but the strongest weaponry, run your jammers! We'll see if they are willing to fight if it will result in their deaths! Buzz, your armour is not quite as strong as mine and you do have spares, so you can take cover behind me or retreat if you want to." Normally, it was extremely likely with all but the most powerful and feared gang leaders that their gang would refuse to follow such a ridiculously dangerous order.

But given that apart from MasterBlaster and Buzz, the Fists really were down to their last body and did not have enough Energon to buy more, every battle to the body was for them like one to the death anyway, so they really had nothing to lose from obeying it. Once they could afford one or more spares, they would once more treat such an order with the utter contempt that it deserved. Soon jammer after jammer flicked on, meaning that if the outnumbered ICC guys fought and lost, the consequences had just been raised from losing a body to death and probably ending up in the Neutral Realm. The ICC bots did not turn and run, but they did stop advancing in the face of this powerful jamming. One of them blasted a shot off at MasterBlaster only for the shot to be absorbed into his body. MasterBlaster decided upon a bluff. "We may not look the best, but all of us have one of the latest mods from Ultimate Mods-blaster-proof armour!" he announced to the ICC bots "which is why we can run our jammers like this. You are outnumbered ten to three, and if you fight us we won't even be scratched, whilst you will be dead bots, perhaps in the Neutral Realm making parts eternally for your betters. Leave now whilst you still can."

Beside him his bots formed a firing line, all of them running their Bravery Up at what would normally be a frankly stupid level to avoid any fear. They pointed their blasters at the ICC as if eager to do battle. MasterBlaster, who also showed his chest blasters, was in effect running a huge connive, like a toad that puffed itself up to look really threatening and impressive. Buzz was inwardly furious with MasterBlaster for putting his, Buzz's, life needlessly in danger like this, but now was not the time to get into a spat with MasterBlaster. Whilst danger from outside still threatened, Decepticons put their internal rivalries aside. Buzz vowed to himself to get revenge in some way for this once the danger was over-or at least tell MasterBlaster exactly what he thought of him-if he was able to survive. MasterBlaster's shameless hot-dogging had made himself another foe.

*****
Cybertron

After playing games for about an hour in SolarTempest's mansion, the SolarTempest Gang set out to find themselves a really good Raid List.

*****
Evening's Light

Loyal Star had an amusing thought in his mind-boards of a priestly duel-entertaining for spectators, but not very good for gaining converts. "Hopefully given enough time we will get to know each other, but don't worry, I'm not going to pry into what you consider private. And I certainly don't want to start trouble. If I, my stuff, you, or the honor of Megatronism itself is under threat, I'm perfectly willing to do battle, but I'd much rather not fight other Decepticons. The fights I really do enjoy is when Megatron enlarges the Empire and I am battling against infidel biologicals and helping Megatron at the same time. Now that sort of battle I do enjoy." Loyal Star smiled back and before the service started brought himself a decal for a couple of Energon Cubes, so that if he needed to exercise his civilian's privilege to fight he could do so without bringing Megatronism into disrepute whilst doing so. He was back in time and soon he was greeting the bots as they came in for the service and hoping he could do well and not make Smooth Talker disappointed with him.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Oil Planet #22w4

The ICC bots stopped advancing at first, but soon, two of the stepped forward, one next to the other. They didn't believe that Ultimate would sell anything so cheap-looking and fully intended to test it.

"It's obvious that only the boss and that little twerp have the good stuff," one said to the other. "Let's just mow down the others and then gang up on those two!"

"We still have our Saves at home, too. I'm sure you'll do a restore if there are unfortunate results, right?" The other one agreed with this.

With that, the two opened fire on that guy at the very end of the Fists' line, forcing him to duck and dodge to avoid major damage. However, all of the Fists fired back at the same time, quickly taking out one of the two active attackers. The other one quickly backed up, but was peppered with blaster fire in the process. He still lived, but was unable to engage in further combat without facing near-certain death. Now, the other ICC bots weren't so confident. Reluctantly, they took their damaged comrade and took off back into space.

For now, the oil field belonged to the Fists. However, they would have to hurry and fill up their haulers quickly, because the ICC bots would surely call for backup as soon as they were out of range of the jammers. The syndicate's next attack would likely take the form of high-altitude bombardment, and have no easily-detectable warning at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

After some game playing, SolarTempest's gang split up and went looking for someone who would have a list. All they'd need to do is find someone who used to be with the IOPC and was willing to sell. The syndicate had 10,000 adjuncts and 100 members before its disbandment, and now, most of them were still very much in the business. However, with a population of over 14 billion, finding one of a puny 10,000 would not be as easy as that might seem.

SolarTempest decided that he would check in the gritty places of Cybertron. There, it would be likely to find someone who either had the list or knew someone who did. However, he didn't take his Energon with him - it would be too easy to be ganged up on and robbed in the places he intended to check. His first stop would be the Quick Drink near the Main Refinery, known for its violent and lowbrow clientele.

On his way there, he passed a factory that was making loud metal-stamping sounds. When he looked over, he saw about a hundred bots standing around with clueless looks on their faces. Two chaperone types were keeping some from wandering off. When he zoomed in with his telescopic vision, he saw that a tiny sign identified the installation as the First High Speed Factory of the Decepticon Nation. Immediately, he remembered Megatron's address, and stopped to take a closer look. Alas, some soldiers appeared and shooed him away from where he could get a direct view. "Sorry, we know you're curious," they said, "but we can't allow anyone into 'direct shot' position. Security reasons; you understand."

After taking another look from the place they allowed him to stand, he took off and flew to the Quick Drink. It was definitely exciting to see some of the first factory-builts in centuries standing there in person.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Evening's Light

As the bots came in for the service, they all asked Loyal Star's name and gave him a "hi" or similar greeting in response. They all gave their names, too. Most humans would take a while to learn them all, but as a robot, Loyal Star easily logged them in.

Soon, most of the congregation had arrived, but as is true of any group of sapients, there were exceptions. One came in 10 minutes late, while on the other extreme, another had been there for an hour before Loyal Star had even locked the doors into the open position. He noticed that one held his head low, apparently due to feeling either sad or depressed. He decided to ask Smooth Talker if he knew what the problem was and how severe it was, and if Smooth Talker didn't know, to approach the bot himself and see if he wanted to discuss it.

Another interesting bot had several lightning stripes painted on his arms fairly garishly, and these led the eye to the triple blaster sets on each one. This bot looked not particularly mean, but like a brawler who would love to have a non-lethal match - against anyone willing to be his opponent. He sat down with a thud and antsily looked around. Clearly, he would rather have been outside right now.

The others were a fairly standard collection of citizens, and they took their seats without incident.

Finally, the eyes on the Icon of Megatron lit up and its mouth smiled. This signaled that the service was now considered in session, though latecomers would be allowed in. The people stood, gave it a bow, and waited for Smooth Talker to come out. Once he did, he motioned for everyone to sit again and the service began.

[Vallermoore]

Oil Planet #22w4

MasterBlaster grinned as like a firing squad the Fists took out one of the ICC members and left a second barely functional. Once they went, he said "Good riddance to bad rubbish! But this is the ICC we are dealing with so we have to be quick. This is no place to linger, or we'll face larger numbers, bomber bots or worse. Fill up so we can get back to Cybertron." The Fists went about things quickly as they all knew how dangerous the ICC could be and were soon out of there with plenty of Energon Cubes. Unless the ICC managed to intercept them quickly, their raid would be a success, although it had put them or at least MasterBlaster on the ICC's radar.

It was unlikely that a single raid like this would send the entire ICC into "Outright kill MasterBlaster mode" by itself-not all that much was taken and no full members killed or blasted and a minus of being a Decepticon was that raids happened. But too much of this sort of thing, raiding ICC places, and the ICC as a whole would see the Fists as a threat to itself and deal with them in the traditional Decepticon Way.

As they left, turning off their jammers, MasterBlaster said "Soon enough we'll hopefully get spares and then we can't do as crazy a stunt as we did there." Buzz waited for the chance to at the least, make MasterBlaster aware that his crazy stunt was not acceptable under normal circumstances and had really made him angry. Only the sheer poverty of the newly hired Fists and the fact that they didn't yet have any spares had made them willing to obey such an order. Even in the Decepticon Military, which was well known for obeying orders, an order like that from a trainer or base general would soon be reported by Milintel to General Soundwave and the reason for the order would be investigated. If it turned out there was a proper reason, it would be OK, but if not, the punishment might be anything from being reduced to the ranks, perhaps with penal time, to outright execution if the order was given for malicious reasons. Deliberately getting the troops under your command outright killed in war when it could be avoided was Weakening of the Decepticon Nation. Decepticon bodies if need be could be spent with impunity but not Decepticon lives, which could encourage fragging of officers or even outright mutiny.
*****
Cybertron

It had taken quite a bit of looking, but the SolarTempest gang had come across one Chaos Frame who, with the IOPC now disbanded, was willing to sell a genuine IOPC list.

*****
Evening's Light

Loyal Star easily noted down everybody's names in a file in his mind boards. When he had the chance, he would be interested in talking with the bot who had waited for so long for the temple to open up. Perhaps that particular bot was interested in the religious life? Or maybe he was just waiting for another bot he knew well to turn up. When he had enough spares, which he didn't consider he had quite yet, he would ask the brawler if he wanted a brawl for fun. He was looking for little inoffensive ways to get the bots to like him without seeming to try too hard and seem like a conniver looking for a new mark. He also wanted to find out why the unhappy bot was sad. For now, he listened to the sermon as it began, and the sermon was about the topic of raiding.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Space

Buzz wanted to blast MasterBlaster the second the jammers were off, but he knew that he would only tip his hand and waste his firepower against MasterBlaster's upgrades. He was about to get on the radio and give him a good cursing out when he saw some lighted blue swirls in the distance. Knowing that it had to be the ICC's backup squad coming in, he not only remained silent, but made a very slight motion in their direction. This let most of the gang know that they had better leave quickly - and do so silently, so as not to attract the attention of those who surely wanted to blast them.

Most of the Fists saw Buzz's little warning, but since MasterBlaster was flying in the leadership position up in front, he missed the gesture. However, it didn't take long for him to know that something was up as the rest of the Fists sped by him and went into FTL. Even though they were carrying large amounts of oil, they moved quite quickly in the gravity-free environment of space.

As MasterBlaster wondered what was going on and was about to get on his radio and demand an explanation, the ICC's backup squad noticed the FTL lights and quickly locked onto the location of the last Fists still in normal flight mode. There was MasterBlaster and two others who had been too far ahead of Buzz to see his heads-up, and they soon found out exactly what had motivated the others to speed ahead. A hail of blaster fire came from the new ICC squad - 10 bots with much better fighting capabilities than the first group.

Rather than stick around, the two spare-less Fists activated their FTL with the intention of heading off to Cybertron. They assumed that MasterBlaster would do the same. Soon, they disappeared from view, one barely escaping a blast that would surely have been powerful enough to scrap him. Now, MasterBlaster had a choice: He could try to take out all of the ICC backup bots, knowing that if he won, he would make a huge name for himself as a warrior but risk having the rest of the Fists disappear with the loot; or he could follow the Fists back to Cybertron right away, which would all but ensure that he would get his cut and also prevent Buzz from getting a bunch of time to roll out propaganda against him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

Before long, all of SolarTempest's gang had been informed that a Raid List seller had been located. Before pursuing this, however, he remarked that the group needed a proper name. "We are becoming very strong," he said, "and the people need a name to know us by - a name to respect and fear."

The group, minus the one who had found Chaos Frame, got together and discussed this requirement. It was true that every gang worth its salt was known by a particular name, except, perhaps, for the shady elite thieves who still found it strategic to pretend that they didn't even exist. This gang was not one of that type.

Soon, it was decided that they should take a syndicate-style name. "We're already bigger than almost all of Cybertron's current raid gangs," SolarTempest said. "It won't be long before we can branch out. I say that we should call ourselves something broad-based. Something like..." He thought for a moment... "the Cybertronian Business Association."


Not long after, SolarTempest arrived at the location the one who was still with Chaos Frame had given him - it was not the Quick Drink near the refinery, but instead, a high-end, dimly-lit Energon-serving establishment with the shady atmosphere of a mob-run speakeasy. There was even a musician in the corner, a dark purple bot who manually played jazz on a keyboard. He sang softly as he played, making sure to keep the volume at a level that would allow conversations to take place. Along one wall, there was a bar and bartender, and even though the different-colored "drinks" were actually all Energon Supreme, it provided the appearance of a type of establishment that was a relic of times gone by - times that had taken place on a very distant world. This was clearly an IOPC establishment, even if this was now unofficial, and Masher's preference for the Earthian Mafia style was still obvious in every detail. This particular establishment was a monument to Prohibition - and how the Mafia of the United States had not only thwarted that country's ban on alcohol, but had sometimes done so in grand style.

When SolarTempest walked in, a host in "white tie" decals quietly showed him to a table that was already occupied by Chaos Frame and one of his gang's members. The music trickled over, but at this location, it was very much in the background. Chaos Frame gave a signal, and almost immediately, a black-tuxedo-decaled waiter arrived with a large snifter of Supreme, artificially colored to look like brandy.

Chaos Frame stood up and gave a slight bow, and once they were all seated again, he wasted no time in opening the negotiations.

"I am Chaos Frame, a Lone Scout," he introduced himself, "and I believe that your group will be far better served not with a list - though I do have one to provide - but by someone who has hundreds of years of experience at providing new intelligence."

Cigar smoke from those at the other tables swirled around them as the offer hung in the air.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Evening's Light Temple of Megatronism

Smooth Talker quickly began his sermon, knowing that the topic would soon have everyone's attention. Decepticons, even those who were centuries old, were generally glad to hear talks on raiding just in case there was a nugget of information that they didn't already know. Alas, they would soon find that the sermon was not about how to raid better. It was about why raiding was considered sacred by Divine Leader Megatron.

The idea that raiding - forcibly stealing oil and other resources in the manner of pirates - could be considered sacred by anybody got people's attention back from the half-tuned-out states it had been heading toward. Loyal Star himself was now paying close attention rather than just appearing to as part of the job.

First, Smooth Talker read the part of the Speech at the Founding of the Nation that described raiding as a citizen's privilege - all but an inalienable right - of a Decepticon. Such privileges were not merely to be left alone by the government, but actively protected by the military force thereof. Then, he went into the sermon itself.

"Some will say that raiding is actually no longer necessary," Smooth Talker began. "That there is such a thing as a no-Energon engine. Or that we should 'advance' to a form of fuel that is easier to come by and less risky to get. This is the alluring trap of our enemies! For when a culture doesn't have to experience any danger, it soon forgets the value of the Upgrade. It allows itself to become sluggish and inefficient, certain in its plenty. Being certain in one's stocks of supplies, however, is not the problem. The problem is that such cultures also become certain in their position in the universe." Smooth Talker thoughtfully rubbed one blaster. "And it is when they have that certainty that another culture arrives and takes over." Here, he stopped and stared out at the congregation.

"Raiding is sacred because it is this practice that gives us most of the incentive to keep upgrading. To remain war-ready. To always be eager for the fight. Because of raiding, we know the thrill of victory for ourselves! It is not a hypothetical left to movies or something only superheroes experience. A raider knows what a full life is about: Planning, attention to detail, preparation, execution of the plan - and victory. When we encounter inferiors, we are ready to raid them and experience that thrill again! If inferiors attack US, we are ready to defend, not just mentally, but thanks to the upgrades done for raiding, physically. On offense or defense, we are ready we are eager, and we want to be part of it ourselves. And this is why raiding is sacred. It strengthens the Nation and its People, and as such, is officially blessed by our Divine Leader Megatron."

After the sermon was complete, Smooth Talker stepped back and took a seat at the side of the stage. Now it was Loyal Star's turn to stand in the center. He came out from his discrete location, and as they had planned out just before the service, instructed the congregation to flip to File #23 in their already-installed hymnal modules.

Megatronist "hymns," it turned out, were nothing like the slow and somewhat schmaltzy ones associated with Catholicism and Anglicanism, nor were they the bouncy ditties of Baptism. The congregation soon filled the air with a rousing military march that progressed at a good clip. One could almost hear the Decepticon Military marching as infantry in robot mode, tromping over all opposition as if it were mere gravel, as the song went on. The lyrics spoke of Megatron's excellent leadership, the relentless expansion of the Empire, and the crushing of all who were not Decepticon. Loyal Star provided a track of bugles and drums through his upgraded voice chip, completing the effect. As the weeks went on, it would become apparent that this was not a simple exception, but the standard style of Megatronist music.
[OOC: Much like this, only with 100 singers and with bugles as well as drums. And with better singing - it's far easier to get a professional-grade sound out of voice chips. ]

Once the march music ended, it was time for Loyal Star to recite his part. He regaled the congregation with a tale of one of Megatron's military raids, in which a small planet was completely drained of oil despite the opposition of a complete air force equipped with nuclear air-to-air missiles. Rather than just dodge the missiles, or let the enemy fire until it ran out, Megatron had hovered in place, grabbed the incoming ordnance, and thrown it back at the enemy planes. In this way, 100 enemy planes were downed with their own missiles. Then, once Megatron had tired of "having fun," he opened fire with his fusion cannon and took out several hundred more. "It is Megatron's desire that all Decepticons know such supremacy over their targets," Loyal Star exhorted. "Always remember upgrades and practice, for they are the ways to victory and the blessings of Divine Leader Megatron!"

After this point, Loyal Star took a seat next to Smooth Talker, and ushers gave the nod for the congregation to bring their donations to the proper location. Soon enough, the service was completely over.

The one who had been sitting there far before the start of the service was also the first to leave. Then, the rest began to file out, and Loyal Star gave them parting greetings on their way out. Finally, the depressed-looking bot trudged to the door, looking even more dejected than he had before. It seemed that something about today's topic had disheartened him.

Outside, cheery yells and splattering sounds were heard. The kids were already playing an impromptu raid game with paintballs.

[Vallermoore]

Space/Cybertron

With a single token blast against the ICC bots that were coming after him, MasterBlaster followed the rest of the Fists into FTL, and soon enough they were back at Cybertron together. Most of the Fists were clearly very pleased with the results of the raid, but Buzz was anything but happy. MasterBlaster asked Buzz "What's wrong? We all got away with our loot after all, and a single raid is unlikely to set the entire ICC after us."

*****
All of the gang were pleased with the new name, the first sign that this gang was going to evolve into something bigger and better then the many average gangs on Cybertron. Soon SolarTempest went to meet Chaos Frame and met him in a bar that was in some ways surprisingly Earthlike. Although the ex IOPC had lost most of their territory on Cybertron, they had managed to hold onto this place. When Chaos Frame started the negotiations, SolarTempest asked him "So you want to join us? As a former Full Member of the IOPC, with a great deal of information on raiding targets, I think you would be a fine addition to the Cybertronian Business Association . One day we will be a major syndicate in our right, and those who joined early will be the highest in rank and influence."

*****
Evening's Light Temple of Megatronism

When Smooth Talker started talking about raiding, everybody took interest in it. His sermon was well received-all healthy bots knew well the value of the upgrade that had maintained the strength of the Decepticon Nation for so long. And at the end he said "My next sermon at the next service will be far more practical and will tell you how to raid properly and not end up in the Neutral Realm because of a lack of proper preparation leading to poor performance. We are more then windy clerics like the clergy of other nations." Now it was Loyal Star's turn and he played his part well and didn't mess anything up. The congregation didn't start defragging in the temple.

At the end as the bots were leaving, Loyal Star gently asked the deeply unhappy bot "Why are you so unhappy? Is there anything within reason that I, as a member of the Priesthood, can help you with? If you want we can talk in private away from the other bots. If not, I understand. I'm not here to pry, and if you have any private treasonous thoughts I don't want to know about them." The bot looked at him with sad eyes and spoke.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
Domestic Intelligence Headquarters
The daily report from the Domestic Intelligence Supercomputer highlighted many things of interest. Typically, it contained pointers toward those that it had flagged as being highly likely to become active dissidents, others who were either committing or soon to commit treason of other sorts (such as Weakening the Nation), any suspected foreign infiltration, and progress on various ongoing investigations. It would also highlight potential emerging threats that were not yet treasonous at all, but that warranted enhanced surveillance simply due to their potential for trouble.

Today, the report had flagged up two gangs that were becoming far more powerful than others: The Fists, and the Cybertronian Business Association. The Association was given particular note, and it was noted that currently, its leader was in contact with a former high-ranking member of the IOPC. This also made the Fists worthy of further surveillance since, according to the report, the Fists' leader was the Coder of the Association's leader. Though the groups weren't getting along now - the report noted that both gangs were currently arms-racing each other, and via Ultimate's shop to boot - both would have to be watched in case of either a hostile takeover or a later cooling of hostilities.

As was usual, the report's suggestions and notations were passed on to the appropriate personnel. The reports on the gangs went to the Syndicate Task Force, which monitored all gangs that were, or were likely to become, big enough to cause unrest or other problems for the government.

Soon, every tiny bit of information on both gangs, and every member in them, had been retrieved from the Supercomputer, compiled into information trees that made the most important parts stand out, and all connections and likelihoods were calculated - no matter how trivial they currently seemed. It was clear that for now, neither had treason in mind and that both groups were focusing on their own growth and the enrichment of their members. SolarTempest was obviously very ambitious, and he went about things in a more methodical way. He also had named his group in syndicate style, clearly showing his intention for it. MasterBlaster, on the other hand, was just as ambitious but was brash and tended to come up with things without a whole lot of advanced planning. As long as he kept this attitude, he was not likely to become a big threat, and in fact, was likely to get his boards blown off at some point. Despite this overall assessment, DomIntel noted that he did have enough awareness of his own drawbacks to have done his best to counter them, most notably by buying some of the best possible armor from Ultimate Mods as well as better and more blasters.

The Supercomputer also noted that SolarTempest had "mistakenly left" 100 Cubes with a certain agent and that this resulted in a low-level security breach involving MasterBlaster's location and activities. While this itself was legal, it showed that SolarTempest was already quite fine with using corruption of the government to serve his ends - another sign that he would be more successful than most as a syndicate leader.

After all of the analyses were complete, a plan was formed. The agency would do its best to embed a covert agent into each gang. It would do its best to ensure that such an agent was always embedded - if one seemed to get deactivated during a raid, another would soon be trying to get in. Of course, any such "deactivations" would just be part of the agents' cover. It was likely that some would pretend to be spareless losers in order to get in - especially when targeting the Fists - but in reality, all covert agents had a spare and a save back at DomIntel Headquarters.

DomIntel wouldn't stop here. It would also have agents in strategic places as well as extra bugs and cameras (if a location didn't already have them). Currently, their existing extra surveillance had already picked up plenty. For example, Ultimate's shop, the street outside, and the alley behind were always under constant watch in order to spot anyone trying to become more powerful than Megatron, and the Energon establishment SolarTempest was currently in had live agents sitting at some of its tables at all times as well as plenty of electronic equipment. Allowing that establishment to be bought back from the government by one of the IOPC's former high-ranking local bosses (who had, of course, publicly declared loyalty to Megatron) had been a very good intelligence move.

For now, neither gang appeared to be hiring. That, they knew, would change as the groups either wanted to grow or had to replace deactivated members. Soon, agents would be in all of the right places to present themselves as potential new members whenever an opening arose.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Raid Dropoff Point

The Fists were exchanging their loot for Energon when MasterBlaster asked Buzz what was wrong. In response, Buzz tore him a new one about running the jammers when he could have been perma-killed as a result. He made sure to yell loudly and make sure everyone knew that once they all had spares, this would be a huge problem for them as well! He also accused MasterBlaster of wanting to kill him, specifically, since his little scout body was the most likely to get blown away even with the upgrades. It was clear that if it wasn't for MasterBlaster's high physical superiority, Buzz would have challenged him to a duel on the spot.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speakeasy

Chaos Frame was delighted to be accepted so readily. "So," he said, "where shall we do the trials by combat? Your group is big enough that you could afford a decent-sized arena..." Like other Decepticons, Chaos Frame assumed that his initial rank would be determined through battle. A tiny part of him hoped to be able to best SolarTempest, though he knew that if SolarTempest had any sense as a leader, he would have built himself up enough to make that impossible.

A few tables over, DomIntel agents posing as customers listened in on everything around them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Evening's Light Temple

The sad bot indicated that he would like privacy, and soon, they were both crammed into Loyal Star's small office.

"The problem is that I'm no good at raiding." He admitted, his head hanging down. "The last time I went out, the entire gang was killed. And not by missiles. We accidentally walked on deep quicksand." His voice sounded so depressed that it was like he was speaking from the bottom of a bucket. "Then when I got into my spare, I got a job, intending to save up enough to get upgrades and find another gang. But I got fired. It was just an assembly job and I put all of the bolts on wrong. I'm such a failure. I should just delete myself. But I'm too scared to do it. Which makes me a worse failure..." His anguish was palpable.

On other planets, such problems would require extensive psychotherapy for the depression, as well as extra help dealing with what appeared to be a case of at least moderate mental retardation. However, on Cybertron, both could be handled by Debugging. First, extra RAM and/or a better CPU and/or a patch would take care of his limited abilities, and at least make the bot capable of handling standard jobs and the brute-force aspects of raiding. Such limited mental abilities were far below the Minimum Design Specification, qualifying them for free repairs, and had likely arisen from some sort of damage or wayward self-created scripting rather than having started out that way. He would never have been certified for activation if his original code showed that he couldn't put a bolt into a hole!

This would take care of the root cause of the depression so that it didn't just come back after that aspect was fixed. Then, the depression could simply be patched. Depression was understood to result from runaway negative thought loops. In Decepticons, this was caused by the loss of a programmatic cap on them, and the loss of the floor on negative self-image. A patch would fix both. Debugging would also suggest an extra Confidence Up patch for this one to give him an extra buffer against developing mental errors from unfortunate events.

Loyal Star's job would be to get him to go to Debugging - the bot surely knew of the Center's ability to help him, but likely due to his depressive errors, thought himself unworthy of it. In these cases, it was sometimes necessary to overpower a sufferer and take him to the Center by force. However, it was best to try to talk the person into going first.

[Vallermoore]

Speakeasy

SolarTempest smiled and replied in a perfectly friendly tone "Up until now we haven't needed to do that yet, but if that's what you want, there are over twenty bots in the gang already. We need to go on one more raid first, as we have spent a lot of Energon on upgrading ourselves at Ultimate Upgrades." SolarTempest was partly telling the truth, but he deliberately left something out; the fact that the upgrades had not been delivered yet. The unspoken threat was clear-If you don't also have the very best upgrades of your own, you could lose all the fights and end up at the very bottom of the gang, hauling the oil pumps around. Whilst he was not against such ranking by battle, he hadn't needed to do it yet and didn't want to until it became necessary. None of the bots had challenged him, and he didn't want to spend time fighting when he didn't yet need to. Being for the most part former humans, they were more friendly then Cybertronians and he didn't want to strain things by making everyone fight each other needlessly. Of course, they all knew that he would blast and if need be kill any rivals to maintain control, just as he had made clear with his own Coder. But he was not going to needlessly blast one of his own gang over nothing.

*****
Evening's Light Temple

Loyal Star was determined to help this bot and knew what was needed but was careful in phrasing it. "I'm not saying this in a nasty way, but you need to come with me to Debugging. They will fix you for free and if any bot tries to kill you on the way, whilst you are unable to defend yourself, I will defend you. If you get attacked when fixed, you must settle it yourself, but today, between now and when you reach Debugging I will defend you if I have to. I'm an assistant priest-part of my job is to help Megatronists. When you have been fully fixed, and I have a few hours off, we can go raiding together against a small target to fully restore your confidence-you can keep half of what we get-and then you can either find a job to save enough for upgrades or a raid gang who would want you as a member as you are. Leader Megatron is very against suicide unless it is the only way to avoid slavery. You deserve better then the Neutral Zone and an eternity of making parts in the afterlife."

The bot nodded and Loyal Star gently stewarded him towards Debugging. He was almost there before a copper-coloured bot came up with his blasters raised. "Out of the way, Priest, this does not concern you. He has to die for what he did."

Rather then back down Loyal Star stood his ground. "Once this bot has been fixed at Debugging you can blast him to scrap if you can defeat him and that's your privilege. Hell, you can outright kill him and it's none of my business. But he is too bug-ridden to fight back and I promised him on my honour as a priest that whilst he was still unable to defend himself, I would protect him. I am carrying out my clerical duties and if you interfere with me, you'll be the one who ends up as scrap." As he said this he quietly and internally made a quick prayer to Leader Megatron by covert radio explaining the situation and that he was very much on duty, praying for success in battle. A loose ring of onlookers was forming around them to see the fight.

"Then you die, Priest of Megatron."

The bot blasted at Loyal Star first and the next moment they were fighting, and inwardly Loyal Star very much hoped what Smooth Talker had said was right. Loyal Star had made it clear that he would have stepped aside once the sick bot had been patched and could fight back and he was not being some sort of cop-this was about his honor as a priest and his clerical duty to help the members of his congregation. He had given the other bot a way to step down without looking weak and get his way-if he could-once his target could defend himself. If Loyal Star was indeed right in not backing down, then the other bot would get a rather nasty surprise.

*****

Raid Dropoff Point

"You rolling pile of glitches! You were not the only one there with a spare, I was too! And I'm in a light scout body! Armoured heavily but still, I could have died for real there! You really need to go to Debugging-or maybe try and join the Genocide Battalion as you clearly don't care about the lives of those in your gang !"

"Challenging my leadership, are you?" Without any further warning, MasterBlaster attempted to blast Buzz's motion boards. This was in effect a double-barreled blaster that could go both ways. Showing the other Fists that he was vastly upgraded and would not tolerate any leadership rivals was to some extent a plus. But if they thought their gang leader was such a loose cannon that he might target them next they might think it worth leaving or even joining together against him. For now at least, they still needed to be part of the gang. Also, running off your voice chip at your gang leader was the sort of thing that tended to get you blasted. MasterBlaster was confident of victory as unlike Buzz, his armour could absorb blaster hits without damage.

Amongst the watchers was an undercover Domintel agent.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Raid Dropoff Point

Buzz didn't have a chance to respond when he was hit in the motion boards with high-powered blaster fire. He was thrown back by the power of the blast, and instantly struggled to switch motion processing to his mind-boards so he could fight properly. He knew that in the time it took to compensate, MasterBlaster could easily delete his running instance, but would never just concede despite this.

Before MasterBlaster had a chance to do anything else, he and the gang found themselves surrounded by extremely angry bots who had their blasters aimed directly at them. Some soldiers also appeared almost immediately. They all joined in chewing MasterBlaster out. "What in the foundry are you doing!? No blasting at a Dropoff Point!!! You could blow us all to bits! You could destroy all of our loot!! The Energon we're all trading for would go up like a bomb with one miss!" The soldiers barged up closer, avoiding causing dents to the crowd in the process by using maneuvers they'd learned when they were assigned to Dropoff Point security. "All of you, leave right now! Fighting at Dropoff Points is NOT allowed!" They, too, aimed their mil-spec blasters at the gang, including Buzz, who had clearly been intending to fire back.

With over 100 very angry bots ready to blast them, the Fists decided that taking their still-raw loot and going away very quickly was the best bet. They transformed and flew to make their exit even faster. Now, they were all irked at MasterBlaster, though they also agreed with his decision to blast Buzz. They just thought that the two should have fought somewhere else!

Buzz staggered away from the scene in robot mode, his eyes coal-like with anger. However, instead of following the others, he made his way to the Underworks. There, he switched his damaged body for one of his spares. After checking the spare over to make sure that its buzz-power was working very well, he headed back to the surface. He would fix the other body later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speakeasy

Chaos Frame was shocked to hear that this gang didn't determine rank with trials by combat. He'd never heard of such a thing! His expression clearly showed this shock as, for a few moments, he sat there speechless.

"But...well...then how do you usually determine rank?" He finally asked incredulously - and suspiciously. "You DO have a clear-cut way of doing it, don't you~? Surely you aren't expecting me to just accept the FNG position!?" Chaos Frame, in his many travels, had seen that many groups that didn't have trials by combat just automatically gave the new guy the worst jobs - and he wouldn't be having any of that.

~~~~~~~~~~

Near the Evening's Light Debugging Center

The response to Loyal Star's prayer was instant. First, he heard Megatron's booming voice directly in his head: "Internally think prayers to me with the intention of them being prayers - don't radio!" he commanded. He sounded a bit irked. Clearly, if someone had told Loyal Star to radio instead during his initial training, there would be a procedure change announced soon.

Before more could be said, the opposing bot opened fire, and immediately knew that he had made a big mistake. A very obvious force field appeared around Loyal Star and absorbed the energy. Immediately, Loyal Star raised his blasters and fired back. To the enemy bot's shock, the power that came out was not that of the Standard Blasters the Assistant Priest was bearing, but instead, that of Megatron's fusion cannon itself. Before he could even exhaust a brick, his body was completely vaporized. Loyal Star's blasters - which would have been overloaded and vaporized had he tried to overpower them so much via physical means - were completely fine.

"The Divine Leader is always with his representatives!" Megatron's voice boomed out all around them. Then, everything was silent. A small group of passers-by stared in awe.

"I think it should be safe to continue on our way," Loyal Star said to the other bot, and they soon arrived at the local Debugging Center.

Once the bot was taken in the back and given an initial examination, an assistant came out to see Loyal Star. "It's going to take several hours to perform the repairs," he informed the Assistant Priest. "You can go back to your other duties. There's no need to worry - there's nothing irreparable. I can't be specific due to privacy protocols, but I can tell you that you saved a life today."

[Vallermoore]

Raid Dropoff Point

Unfortunately MasterBlaster had failed to take notice of the big signs around that said NO FIGHTING ALLOWED AT RAID DROPOFF POINTS DUE TO THE EXPLOSION RISK . Fighting was allowed nearly everywhere in the Decepticon Empire; where it was not, there was generally a very good reason why it was forbidden. In this case, the reason was that if one Energon Cube was hit, it could cause a chain reaction of explosions. If that happened, even if MasterBlaster's body absorbed the energy, he would be facing a mighty lynch mob that would want to hunt him down and take him apart piece by piece or turn him into an Atari computer. As it was, the bots around them were very angry indeed and eyes darkened all over the area, and the Fists were surrounded with blasters pointed ready to destroy them. "What in the foundry are you doing!? No blasting at a Dropoff Point!!! You could blow us all to bits! You could destroy all of our loot!! The Energon we're all trading for would go up like a bomb with one miss! You stupid walking Glitch, you need a Debugging!" Much ruder curse words that were anything but PG13 in tone were also spoken. The Decepticon Military showed up and they too were furious. "All of you, leave right now! Fighting at Dropoff Points is NOT allowed!"

MasterBlaster and the Fists flew off to find another Dropoff Point, the Fists annoyed with MasterBlaster as he could have killed them all. They still had no spares after all. They were not angry that he blasted Buzz, as it was how raid leaders dealt with rivals, but doing it there was very idiotic.

The incident soon found it's way to Domintel of course and into MasterBlaster's personal file.

Buzz's eyes were like charcoal with rage. After transferring to his Spare, he brought a chip for one Cube and put everything bad about MasterBlaster on it that he knew. It mentioned how he had nearly fought with his offspring when his offspring grew up, had ran his jammer on a raid, had nearly exploded everybody at a raid drop-off point, and was brash to the point of glitchery. He radioed his Coder, with who he was on good terms with, and asked for ideas for how to spread this story around in an interesting way. His Coder suggested turning it into a song that would be genuinely entertaining for Decepticons to listen to and selling it for a Cube per music chip. If he made it fun enough, radio and holovision stations that played music would perhaps play it. It could be a minor hit on Cybertron and would make bots less willing to join the Fists as long as MasterBlaster still led them. Such a thing was legal as long as it was not treason, which it was not as it was not directed against Megatron or his government. Libel, however, normally made the libeled one hunt down the libellous one with murder in mind.

*****
Speakeasy

"So far it's been informal, as most of them joined at one time, but let's go back to the gang as a whole and see which ones want to do battle in an arena against you. I most certainly will. I give you my word we won't do something like run a jammer and all jump on you with a hack chip or anything like that."

Soon they were at SolarTempest's mansion and he was explaining the situation to the whole large gang. "Up until now we have not had to sort out ranks formally by dueling, but this bot here is Chaos Frame, ex-IOPC, and he wants to do that. Who wants to fight him to the body in an arena? No jamming, and no fusion cannons allowed."

*****
Near the Evening's Light Debugging Center

The first thing Loyal Star heard was Megatron's voice in his head, and it was a bit annoyed. Not quite *melt down alive* level annoyed but more like *Never do this again* annoyed. It said "Internally think prayers to me with the intention of them being prayers - don't radio!" Loyal Star would, after the battle was over, put that into a file that would display automatically should he ever need to pray to Megatron again, so he wouldn't repeat his mistake.

As the opposing bot opened fire, a force field absorbed the energy, and when Loyal Star blasted back, much to his surprise what came out was not Standard Blaster fire but Fusion Cannon fire, vaporizing his foe so that only sooty footprints remained. Those who watched were extremely surprised. Clearly, challenging an on-duty priest was very unwise when said priest was clearly doing his job.
Megatron's voice loudly boomed out "The Divine Leader is always with his representatives!"

"Wow!" Loyal Star said aloud, looking at his blasters. He quickly thought an apology to Megatron for his mistake, promising not to repeat it. As a result of it, High Priest Warfire would get a short message from Leader Megatron telling him to remind all Priests of Megatron at all levels that they were never, repeat never , to radio prayers to Megatron instead of thinking them.

"I think it should be safe to continue on our way," Loyal Star said. If there were any other foes, they held back. The bot would soon be fixed and be able to once more defend himself if attacked. After an assistant Debugger had given the news, Loyal Star felt pleased with himself. A few hours later the bot would return, now happy and perfectly sane and able to defend himself from attack, to thank Loyal Star.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Buzz quickly went about trying to sell his new song, which was done in rap style since that seemed the most fitting for the type of content it held. However, he would find no chip stands or music stores interested in carrying it.

"Nobody cares about a diss track done by some nobody, against some other nobody," they said, shooing him away. "Come back after you've sold 100,000,000 copies of some other song, and after the other guy is famous, too. Then people will know you and may have a reason to give your opinions the time of day." Over and over, music distributors gave him the same response - when they even bothered to listen to it at all. At the biggest companies, they just tossed his chip into a pile of thousands of other submissions and said they'd "eventually" review it. There, it was obvious that they only reviewed any submissions at all when one of their current offerings stopped selling, and that could be years.

In frustration, he would upload the track to the pirate music sites, hoping to distribute it for free just to get the message out. But since no one was searching for the song's name, it sat there all but ignored. Months later, there would only be two downloads - and they would come from the creators of other music just making sure that it wasn't a covert copy of whatever they'd written.

Even on Cybertron, where music distribution wasn't nearly as centralized as it had been on Earth, it was quickly apparent that breaking into that market was harder than raiding. There were just too many wannabe musicians to make it easy to gain traction.

~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, Buzz had an idea. He would ask the absolute masters of the game for tips. He went to Decepticon Headquarters' government administration area - an area of a few square blocks that held the main government offices - and found the building dedicated to the Bureau of Propaganda. It was a decently-tall high-rise, with its logo both on the fascia board and on the glass doors. The logo was of broadcasting waves coming from a futuristic satellite. The design and coloration of the building itself was light, airy, and open - purposely designed to create the psychological impression that this agency was dedicated to disseminating the truth.

After walking in and explaining his predicament to the receptionist, he got a simple answer of "100 Cubes." That's what it would cost for a consultation with what the representative referred to as an "advertising agent." Buzz quickly paid up, and soon, was seated on the customer's side of a half-circle desk in someone's office.

"I'm Obfuscator," the agent identified himself, as if oblivious to how his name clashed with the Bureau's desire to look like the ultimate authority on the true version of all facts. "And they tell me that you are Buzz, a disgruntled raid gang member looking to cause the boss trouble. That's a fairly typical desire, though most go about that by opening fire. Still, you have come here, so I will present three options."

"The first option will require a budget of 10,000,000,000 Cubes of Standard, and it is the most effective. It involves a full, Empire-wide advertising campaign in the style of the negative political advertising in a democracy. That guy's face will pop out of every holovision on the half-hour, in grayscale, as a professional announcer lists his irredeemable acts. Then, your face will pop up, in color and with cheery music, as the best possible leader that will not only replace him, but build Cybertron's greatest syndicate. Of course, the ads will have no bearing on whether he's really that bad, or you're really that good. His reputation will be trashed and you'll have people signing up in droves. Just remember that if you can't back it up, you'll get scrapped by all of these people once they catch on."

"Option two requires a budget of 1,000,000 Cubes of Standard. It's a limited version of the first option. Less media saturation, with only a few ads a day on the biggest channels, and the campaign ends sooner. It'll stick in the minds of those who know this guy or are in the areas shown in the ads - I suggest showing scenes from every area where he's likely to try to recruit - but others will quickly drop the data as irrelevant. That will cause him damage because those in the right areas will connect the scenes of their home cities with your message, and when he tries to recruit, they won't sign up."

"Finally, there's the 100,000-Cube option. Ads in the local newschips, supplemented by just a couple of holovision announcements. This only covers the areas where he is currently active. It'll lower his reputation there, but if he moves to a new area, that area won't have seen the campaign at all."

"Here at Propaganda, we don't do civilian ad campaigns. But we are allowed to recommend specific agencies, such as mine." He slid over a hard metal business card that read:

Obfuscator & Dissimulator
Product and Brand Promotion - Reputation Management - Character Assassination
Government-grade advertising at civilian prices
Radio Frequency 10, Subchannel 8923957

Apparently, Obfuscator's idea of "civilian prices" had been formed from dealing with massive, multi-trillion-Cube operations.

All of these options except perhaps the last one, Buzz realized, were too expensive for him. After he hemmed and hawed, Obfuscator finally, grudgingly, suggested a simple 1,000-Cube billboard rental in Oil Pan. This would buy just 1 month of exposure for an anti-MasterBlaster ad in MB's apparent main recruitment area. "I strongly suggest that you put only a single point on such an ad," Obfuscator warned. "Otherwise, the font will be too small for people to see at a glance, and the ad won't work."

With this, he ushered Buzz out, leaving him to fully consider his options and whether he wanted to even take the ad campaign route at all or instead try something intended to be more lethal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SolarTempest's Mansion

The others in the gang weren't the least bit put off by the thought of fighting this new guy. "He wants to fight, eh?" One said with a grin as he drew a set of titanium knuckles from a side panel and put them on. The other former humans, with the exception of the higher-class SteelHard, were similarly ready. "It's been a long time since we've had a good old-fashioned brawl!"

"We'll show them that all that talk about humans having become more peaceful is a bunch of bullshit!"
"Yeah, we'll cover the arena floor with his oil!"
Even SteelHard finally joined in. "It would be a nice diversion to show off my martial arts training."

The Cybertronians, however, were more reticent. They soon told the others how a bot like Chaos Frame, who had been with the IOPC for centuries, would have installed all of the melee combat modules and been in hundreds of battles against all sorts of different species. "You're going to get your tailpipes kicked," they predicted. "A longstanding full member of the IOPC will make scrap iron out of all of you. Only SolarTempest here has a chance, and that's because he's already built up his body. But even so, he'll have to watch out, too. Those 'puny' scouts always have some big tricks. That's how they manage to stay alive looking so weak!"

Nuke dissented with this assessment. "He won't be trickin' anything after I NUKE him!" he promised. "However, none of us should go in half-cocked. We have upgrades currently being built!" He looked at SolarTempest. "It makes sense that we should delay any fights until we actually have them installed. Then this guy will get a proper run for his rank."

With the discussion over, it had been decided: The former humans would all fight; it was the nature of the species - especially those with a gangland or military background - to vie for dominance using physical means rather than just those that relied on talk.

The Cybertronians would hold back, with the exception of SolarTempest and Nuke, who was just as cocky as ever and was still looking to regain the pride he'd lost to MasterBlaster. Haula and Brutal knew that if the new guy was really a high-ranking IOPCer, he had a good chance of defeating all but the best of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pony Afterlife

Over a million soldiers were at work here, and already, one full city's worth of buildings and infrastructure was in place. Now, the materials used for the building weren't coming from Cybertron. Instead, they came from the thousands of mines that had been set up on the strange flat world.

Meanwhile, Carjack Agriculture bots were at work improving the existing orchards and planting more. Carjack himself had stopped by to see how things were going, and to his surprise, he recognized the energy signatures of a few of the apple trees. He'd always known that all - or nearly all, at least - lifeforms had souls of varying degrees of complexity. Now, he realized that some of the trees that he had culled on Equestria had their souls end up here, and at least some of them had stayed in tree format. However, since they were trees, this was more of an interesting curiosity than anything else. At least here, they were in the right spots and would be appreciated.

It wasn't long before curious Decepticons decided that they had to know the answer to a simple question: Was it possible to fall off the edge of a discworld, and if so, where would the person (or thing) fall to? Would it fall at all, or would the gravity of the discworld just pull it back? Maybe it would hang there in space. A few bots - not scientists, but just curious troops on a short leave, made their way to the edge, carrying some medium-sized boulders to chuck off the side so that they could see what would happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Evening's Light

Smooth Talker commended Loyal Star on being able to get the once-stricken bot to go to Debugging. He admitted that he had tried before, but to no avail. "I suppose it was your offer of protection that helped," Smooth Talker said. "I never even thought of that. Perhaps it's because you used to be a biological, so you have more empathy for weakness. His name is LowGlider, by the way. He's not too proud of that, either, and will likely change it - a move I heartily endorse. He must have already had some glitches when he named himself after a non-powered type of aircraft!"

"On another note, you might have noticed that one guy came really early but then bolted away fast. He's definitely up to something. I suspect he hopes that someone will meet him here before the service, or perhaps he's getting some sort of secret communication. Just keep an eye on him. So far, nobody has shown up that I don't know, but I'm sure he is engaging in the practical aspects of the ways of our Leader...and depending on the specifics, that may or may not actually be good for the Temple. But don't accuse him of anything, since it's probably entirely legal. Simply be there whenever he is, so if he has a more treasonous bent, he doesn't get a chance to set anything up."

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Buzz thanked Obfuscator. "If there is another zombie event and I ever become super-rich because of it, or I somehow pull off the Raid of the Century, I know who to come to. Thank you for your trouble." He left the building, filing his song idea away in a file in his mind boards marked Legal but Impossible For Now Ideas. Then he had another far more workable idea, and went to a shop that used to be owned by the IOPC and was owned by an ex IOPC bot. Going to a shop of the ICC so soon after raiding one of it's planets was unwise, given that he needed advice. A bribe of 100 Cubes to the shop owner soon got him one on one attention. "I need your help to get revenge on my gang boss, who goes by the name of MasterBlaster. MasterBlaster's currant body has the very finest upgrades available to the general public, including the power to absorb blasts, but his spares are just normal bodies. I want revenge because he persuaded his gang, at a time when none of them but him and me had spares, to run their jammers in battle-forgetting that I did have spares, damm it! I could have been killed! But how can I destroy that uber-powerful body of his?"

SolarTempest's Mansion

Not really thinking about how tough and wily in combat Chaos Frame really was, the former humans were eager to do battle, whilst at least some of the Cybertronians would wait until after their upgrades arrived. SolarTempest was pretty sure that Chaos Frame would challenge him as well, but was confident that he could come out on top. Soon enough they went to an arena and hired it for their combats. The humans were cocky as they prepared to do battle, grossly underestimating Chaos Frame and what he was capable of. Whatever happened, Chaos Frame would not end up as an FNG.

Pony Afterlife

As the building continued, the few ponies who had escaped being killed or enslaved were starting to have fewer and fewer places to retreat to, whilst a certain number of bots had shift work grabbing and chipping any new pony souls who appeared as their bodies died. Ponies who had been faithful Ponyists all their lives and whose bodies had been lovingly buried (earth ponies and unicorns) or cremated (pegusai) with the proper Ponyist rites, found themselves enslaved for the rest of eternity. Only those who went to the freezing hell of the Windigos, and those who went to the very special heaven for the very best Ponyists, escaped that fate. When the curious troops just dropped rocks off the disc, gravity pulled the rocks to the disc, but when they threw the rocks, they dropped down.

Evening's Light

"Don't worry, I'll keep a close eye on that strange bot. It mystifies me why any Decepticon would want to commit treason against such a ruler as Megatron, who made us what we are and who has ruled and continues to rule so well."

"I had to call on Megatron's blessings today when a bot attacked me without provocation when I was taking that bot to Debugging. I told the bot that once the one I was escorting had been Debugged, he could then get revenge on that bot and I wouldn't care, but he didn't want to wait and blasted me. A force field formed around me and when I blasted back-Megatron fusion cannon beams came out of my blasters and vaporized the bot. If he got to another body in time, he won't attack another Assistant Priest or Priest doing his clerical duties again."

"You must be the reason for the general messages sent to all ranks of the Megatronist Clergy by High Priest Warfire reminding them to think prayers rather then radioing them. You must have radioed your prayer by mistake. Still, He granted your boon, so he knew it was an honest mistake."

"I've set things so that mistake will never happen again," Loyal Star assured Smooth Talker.

When a while later the bot that Loyal Star had taken to Debugging came back, he was grinning and his engine was purring.