Universal Business Supplies
There wasn't a sheet of stationery to be seen within this large "business supply" shop - it was talking about a far different class of supplies. Weapons, booby-traps, and kilo upon kilo of various drugs lined the shelves and freestanding kiosks within. In the corner, there was a conspicuous blank space. The store once had two nukes for sale, but they had been confiscated by the government when the IOPC was closed down and were not put back into the store's inventory when it was later put up for auction. It wasn't the idea of civilians in general having nuclear bombs that had made Megatron careful, or the idea that they'd be sold to whoever had the money. Instead, the problem was the thought of disgruntled ex-IOPC members deciding to deliver them to his mansion the hard way.
After accepting the 100-Cube consultation fee, the shop owner was quite happy to spare 10 minutes of his time. He listened to the story, though he really didn't care why this guy wanted to off his boss. To him, reasons were irrelevant. Whether the target had become a threat to the customer, had insulted the customer, was a rival to the customer's gang, or was the head of a business in an industry the customer wanted to bash his way into, the bottom line would be the same. He needed to give advice about how to turn a seemingly unbeatable rival into dead metal.
"The best way to handle a highly powerful opponent like that is to not handle him yourself. Instead, you should hire our professional assassins. Oh, we still have them. We're all still connected. It's just that now, Masher isn't in charge and neither are those who refused to disavow the Corporation. There'll be a huge war of succession one of these days, but for now, it's peaceful - and we can easily take care of any problem of this nature. Did you do well in your raiding? Perhaps you managed to score some good loot during the last zombie event? If so, then your troubles are over. For 1,000,000 Cubes, we will 'fix' his running instance; and for 10,000,000 Cubes, we will 'fix' him just as permanently as Domestic Intelligence would." He gestured to a small counter across the shop, still clearly marked "Assassinations." There, a smallish yellow-painted bot stood behind the counter with a devious expression. Buzz noted that there was currently a customer at that counter - a scorched bot with some melt wounds.
"The next option is to upgrade yourself to a greater level than your quarry and just blast him. However, since you've come HERE, I presume that doing so is, as of yet, unaffordable. This is a common situation faced by those whose enemies are customers of Ultimate Mods."
"This leaves connivery. Connive Number One, available for 10,000 Cubes, is the fake IOPC Raid List." He produced a sheet of foil paper done up to look like the last published actual list, but made sure to hide what was actually printed on it lest it be logged into Buzz's memory and then counterfeited. "The trick of this list is very simple. The most deadly targets are listed as 'highly primitive.' Anyone who flies into their range without expecting a top-class defense will be disassabled alive by a wide variety of extremely futuristic weaponry. The targets that are actually primitive are listed either as 'highly advanced' or 'drilled out.' This is very effective at getting someone - or someone and his gang - to fly to their doom. For you, the hardest part will be getting it to your boss in a convincing way, and if he has the real IOPC List, your chances of convincing him that the fake is a legitimate update are slim."
"Next, there are booby traps. There's the traditional Poisoned Energon Cube, at 1,000 real Cubes; I presume you know what to do with that. Alternatively, you can booby trap his house with a bomb if he has bad security. I suggest the Daisy Cutter, Modified - it doesn't have to be dropped from the sky like the original, but retains the ability to blast out little bomblets and cutters across a wide area along a single plane. Our version also includes an EMP generator, which serves the purpose of a jammer just after the moment of detonation. This one is good for taking out entire groups at once. Just put it right on the door as if it's a package, and when the sucker opens up the gift, he gets the gift of knowledge: The knowledge of what's really in the afterlife!" He laughed in an insincere, salesman's way.
"Or you can just plant a giant land mine in front of his door, that is, if his security is poor enough that you have a chance to cut open a section of ground, plant the bomb, and reweld it so that the work can't be seen - before getting caught."
"There are plenty more nasty tricks you can do. Just think deviously. For example, if your target is prone to using mechanics instead of doing his own work, you can set up a fake mechanic's shop and then just kill him after he opens up his engine panel. Your hired 'mechanic' wrecks the engine, or better yet, disconnects it from the drive shaft so its power does nothing, and then dismantles him. There's all sorts of stuff like that you can do."
"One last idea is to switch something that he might not bother to examine. Most people know about the Poisoned Energon Cube, but few bother with poisoned oil or transmission fluid because it takes a lot longer for those to work. People drink Energon every day, but they typically only switch their oil every month and their transmission fluid on intervals of 1-3 years. This means you have to be patient to use the other two fluids. But it also means that by the time Poisoned Oil is ingested, they've often forgotten about the fight or at least aren't on guard about it any more. Then they do an oil change, and bam. It's like they just glued their whole system into an immobile block. Deadly trans fluid, you should note, will only wreck the transmission and the transformation unit - but with those parts gone, your enemy can't do any major motions and you can easily take him to your favorite foundry for final disposition, just like if you destroyed the engine."
The bot glanced up at the wall clock, signaling that the consultation period was over.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Arena
Once everything was set up, Chaos Frame was given the time and place. All who were willing to fight appeared around the appointed time. The stands became about half-full with spectators, and bookies walked among them taking quick bets. There were so many combatants in the gang that it was typical for some to be bet for while some were bet against.
Soon enough, Chaos Frame strutted into the center of the arena and began to talk trash. He was gleaming today, and it looked as if he might be using a slightly different body than before. This one had a few extra parts, and for now, the ones of note were two can-like additions to his arms. "Come out, come ouutt," he called as if the first opponent was surely chicken.
Immediately, a brawny bot who had, as a human, been a gang "enforcer" came charging out, his engine revving with readiness. He felt no true anger, but revving always happened before a planned fight because it provided the extra power needed for maximum chances. His eyes glowed with eagerness - he had been one of the ones most itching for what he considered a good old-fashioned brawl. As a human, he would have gone to bars every weekend or two and picked a fight against a like-minded strong guy and enjoyed the fighting whether or not he won.
This bot wasn't really inclined to use his blaster as a first resort. He liked to use his fists, to feel the crushing of bone (or in this case, metal and silicone) when he made contact and to leave his personal marks on the opponent's face. He quickly closed the gap, and Buzz could soon see the titanium "brass" knuckles he had put on. Chaos Frame stood there looking almost passive, and soon enough, the first challenger took his initial swing.
With a quick move, Chaos Frame reached out a hand, grabbed the quickly-approaching arm at the wrist, and flipped the much larger challenger over his right shoulder. He landed with a clang, and was about to jump back up when he felt the sear of a blaster cut through the top of his head and begin to make its way across his mind-boards. With only a moment to spare, he evacuated to one of his spare bodies.
Chaos Frame waited with a little smile as arena personnel dragged the carcass to the side of the fighting floor. Human brawlers, he had learned long ago, tended to have the same sorts of styles and weaknesses. One of the main ones was a lack of formal training in melee styles like karate or jiu-jitsu. So, just like biological humans, brawl-minded former ones would charge up and put all of their momentum into the first swing, which of course, made it super-easy to counter with any type of true martial arts move designed to flip the opponent onto his back. Then all he had to do was spin around and put the finish on them with his blaster. He hadn't known how many of the Cybertronian Business Association used to be human, but as soon as he saw the first bot charge out, he had no doubts about that one's origins.
Once the first combatant's body was moved, Chaos Frame signaled his readiness for the next one by straightening up and returning to his position.
~~~~~~~~~~
Evening's Light
The now-repaired bot reappeared, and after finding Loyal Star, thanked him profusely for accompanying him to Debugging. "Thanks to you, I was able to make it to the Center without getting blasted by that guy," he said. "Once I was in, they found out what the problem was. My RAM had corroded, likely due to insufficient moisture sealing and several visits to wet, organic planets. That caused gibberish to be written to my working memory when I tried to remember how to do things. This is why I had been unable to do that assembly job! They fixed that for free, but even the oldest Saves that I still had contained some data corruption. Still, thanks to their ability to do forensic data recovery, most of my knowledge was saved, though I did need a new SEDP install."
"Then they fixed all of those software errors I had, and now, I can see that life is full of sunshine and infinite chances for greatness. It's a wonderful improvement!"
"As for that guy who wanted to blast me, he's mad because at some point, I sold him a fake Engineering AEDP pack that was really just copies of video games." He grinned mischievously. "There are a few other people mad at me for stuff like that, too. But now that I have all of my RAM working, I won't have any trouble taking an extended raiding trip and then handling any who are still looking to melt me down. I just need to watch out for quicksand and stuff. That didn't happen because of the glitches, by the way. The gang leader landed fine, so we all thought it was okay. But it turned out that he happened to land on hard ground just in front of the soft patch, and since we came in behind him..." He made a sinking gesture. "Needless to say, nobody went back under his command after that."
He hadn't been recoded to be always happy, but was so glad to have been debugged that for now, he was smiling and cheerful even when describing fairly bad things. Even the thought of being hunted down by a bunch of angry ex-customers didn't dampen his mood, though it was likely that he would lose a body or two for his small-time scamming at some point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pony Afterlife
The soldiers watched the rocks with interest, noting that it only took a full-force throw to get the rocks past the oddly short gravitational range of the flat world.
"I wonder what's down there?" One asked as he watched a boulder fall out of view. "There has to be something generating the gravity that makes it fall. Otherwise it'd float!"
They stood around speculating for a while, but none were willing to leap off and find out for themselves despite their ability to transform and fly if necessary.
Domestic Intelligence; Pony Afterlife Office 1
DomIntel was the first government agency into this new territory after the Military, and it had wasted no time in setting up its surveillance. It, rather than ForIntel, had been made the main intelligence agency thanks to the fact that this section of the Pony Afterlife was now considered part of the Decepticon Empire. The Empire was also now familiar enough with ponies that it didn't need the help of ForIntel for cross-cultural communication.
Before long, it had a report of the effects of the boulder-throwing, sent in by a small bird-shaped drone - one of thousands that now flew through the skies constantly monitoring the new territory. This report was first radioed through a small, permanent portal back to Cybertron, and from there, it went to the Bureau of Impossible Physics.
Not long after that, a team of 10 - two top physicists and eight combat-ready, physics-trained support personnel - was dispatched to the Pony Afterlife to investigate the phenomenon further. These scientists brought large weighted balls with them, and in each ball, a camera was installed. They would throw these camera-balls off the side of the discworld and then watch screens to see just what images were picked up. The balls also had trackers installed so even if they fell out of sight, the team could detect how far they went before they finally landed on whatever was causing the unexpected field of gravity.
Soon, the team arrived at the edge of the newly-acquired territory. Not long after, they threw the first of their camera-balls off the side and turned to their monitors to see what they would discover...
