An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

SolarStorm took all of this in with interest. "I thought it seemed like it was supposed to be biological! So you're gonna scam some of those...things?" He couldn't imagine what a bunch of 4-legged, puny, blast-inducingly cute, creatures could have that would be worth taking.

"The Military doesn't sound like fun. I'm glad I don't have to go in for years!"

He was visibly relieved by the promise that there'd be a real body waiting if he got into another duel. While he didn't say anything about the comment about not getting into fights against bots that were much stronger than himself, inside he had to laugh because he was already trying to think up ways to defeat Stomper in a rematch. He was, however, smart enough to not even mention a rematch now. He would only do that if he had come up with some way that had a good chance of securing him the victory, whether that was an even more powerful body, some kind of tactic, or the discovery of a weak spot in Stomper's configuration. The last thought didn't hold much promise - if they fought again, Stomper might arrive in an entirely different form.

A slave virus... "Oh, darn," SolarStorm said when he heard this part. "We should have put one of those in the game! Then Stomper wouldn't have been able to attack. He would have been my property!!"

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

Vintage's Shop

"Oh, of course not!" Vintage said when MasterBlaster mentioned that he didn't want to try to take over. "I just thought I'd better add that disclaimer, because frankly, you never know what someone will start thinking when they hear that natural responses are legal. It's always best to make sure to mention the big exceptions."

Vintage certainly did enjoy the lack of cops, but that was to be expected of anyone who had once been sentenced to 50 years in jail. The Decepticon Invasion had saved him from growing very old, and most likely even dying, behind bars.

MasterBlaster had correctly figured out where the bugs were, but had forgotten one important thing: SolarStorm liked his toys. Trying to just put them outside or otherwise remove them would result in vigorous protest. It would end up being better for him to carefully dismantle them, find the bugs and remove them, and then reassemble them. This would be hard since Autobot replicas were notoriously flimsy - they were made with the intention of young Decepticons ending up destroying them easily, and thereby learning that Autobots were junk!

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

Vallermoore

Megatron quickly pulled up his internal map of the country, which he had gotten from ForIntel before leaving Cybertron, and pinpointed Yocasta Square.

"I can find my way, thanks," he responded to the offer of a fighter guide. "Hopefully no one has a desire to commit suicide-by-Decepticon, but you never know with a big crowd. Still, I doubt you're allowing civilians to show up with missiles, and if my guess is correct, I'm sure I'll be safe."

Soon, Megatron had descended low enough to be seen from the ground, and he circled twice before landing with his pair of troops. Most of the crowd began to cheer, and he gave them a big wave and a smile when he landed. His troops stood stoically at a decent distance behind him. The three made sure that any pictures taken would show them looking epic, much like a propaganda poster would look. They also "just happened to" present their best impression in the direction of the various media photographers and camera people.

[Vallermoore]

"One of these days, yes, but until you are fully sapient I need to stay on Cybertron except in a true emergency. If I were to die before you became sapient you would be an orphaned bot." He didn't say that he also liked the idea of spending a few days every few years as a sapient pony just to relax and feel safe, he didn't want to say anything that might incite Domintel to act against him.
"If we had enslaved Stomper, it might be funny for you, but even if you were careful, sooner or later Masher would find out, and you would most likely end up not dead but enslaved yourself, toiling in Megatron Metals Mine #1 indefinitely and me along with you. Decepticons make not have much love in general, but they do love their immature offspring, indeed they had a patch made for it." He thought I need to get those bugs out of those Autobot toys without my offspring finding out. I can't just take his toys away whilst he still enjoys them.

*****
Vallermoore

As Megatron and the other two bots transformed and landed the were a great many cameras clicked in their direction. Vallermooreians found ordinary Decepticons both amazing and scary, so to have the Supreme Decepticon show up was an amazing event. To Megatron, a changeling or sapient pony was no bigger then a large hornet, and there were swarms of black-shelled changelings in open view and pastel-painted ponies of all three groups both on the ground and in the air. The band struck up the Decepticon National Anthem and reporters from the VBC (Vallermoore Broadcasting Company) started reporting for the many watching on TV.

"And as you can see, Leader Megatron, the ruler of the Decepticons, has arrived in Yocasta Square. The Decepticons have been called robbers, raiders, connivers, slavers, and they are all that, but the few Vallermooreians to visit Cybertron and come back alive have reported that they are more then that. They have all manner of shops, houses, and other such things, and from the presences of shops selling things for Decepticon children, they reproduce, although not like one of us would. They have remarkably few laws, but their society works just fine without them. And when a Decepticon has mental problems, they have a government funded health service to fix them."

As the band finished playing and the President of the Central Committee stepped forward to welcome Megatron, a blue pegasus with a cosh hitting a pony head for a cutie mark flew down in front, and prostrated himself on the ground in front of the giant war robots. Two soldiers unslung their rifles and moved forward to hit the pegasus with the rifle butts for daring to land in front of the President. If Megatron chose, being a god, to read the mind of that particular pegasus, the thoughts would be about how amazing and godlike Megatron and indeed Decepticons in general were. If he was to choose to probe any deeper into that particular mind, he would discover that according to the laws of Vallermoore, this pegasus was a criminal, a robber who lived by stealing and plunder and his cutie mark showed that.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"I wouldn't want to use one of those bodies even to con someone out of a billion Cubes!" SolarStorm responded. "They're way too puny. Even a humant could come along, smash it up, and swipe the loot."

"Say," he said after a pause. "You used to be one of those human-things. Did you need a patch to love me?" SolarStorm also had other questions, like just what Megatron Metals Mine #1 was, but right now he was focused on this odd-sounding code patch.

He also wondered, for a bit, what it was like to actually be human. If a human body was anything like that pony one, he could certainly see why his Coder defected. What he couldn't hope to understand was why any biological would willingly stay that way.

~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

Before Megatron had a chance to speak, a very odd-looking biological came up and prostrated himself on the ground before him. The Decepticon leader had heard of these creatures, but it was the first time he actually saw one live. He took in its cuteness, which was causing a near-instinctual desire to blast it as being an abomination to the Decepticon Way, but he also noticed its rather violent marking. Perhaps, he thought, this symbol was some sort of gang seal. Cute gangsters?!?

Before the type-mismatch error could be properly addressed, a couple of humans began to advance on what was apparently - regardless of its generally-cute appearance - a huge fan of Megatron. They clearly intended violence as seen in how they were holding their weapons, and their gaze showed that this pony was indeed their target.

"Hey, hold it, what do you think you're doing!" Megatron demanded, protectively placing one of his huge feet in between the pony and the troops. He also activated his finger blowtorch, intending to use it as a deadly weapon if need be. His fusion cannon would cause too much collateral damage with so many biologicals around, but the torch could easily vaporize one person at a time.

He hadn't done any mind-reading yet, and most likely wouldn't think of doing it as a first resort. For now, he just saw that he had a fan and that some kind of government thugs were advancing on that fan for no apparent reason. This would have to be dealt with first, or the mystery of a violent cutie mark on a cute quadruped could end up becoming moot. Megatron's sense of urgency was heightened by the fact that when his own troops came at anyone with violent intent, they also would intend to be lethal. This certainly doesn't seem like normal behavior for a democracy, he thought to himself silently.

[Vallermoore]

"I didn't need a love patch, humans have more love then native Decepticons. And...you are probably thinking of what it must be to be a human. Imagine being stuck in a body of flesh and bone just slightly stronger then a sapient pony one. You can't mind transfer if you get damaged, you are pretty weak, and if your mind goes wrong, you cannot be Debugged. And even if nothing bad at all happens to you, you will age and die and most likely live just seven or eight decades. Also, where I was there were all sorts of laws, a lot of them petty ones, and there are open" here he screwed up his face as if he was eating something really unpleasant "police to enforce them. We do have Domintel to root out traitors, but it's not the same thing. Mess up here and get caught and you get either dented, blasted, or blasted and outright killed, depending on how annoying you have been to another Decepticon. And of course you can blast back and if you win, that's the end of it. There most people or sapient ponies call the police on you instead of trying to deal with you themselves, and you end up fined or in prison and/or whipped, and if you kill you are executed for it. Feel lucky that you were Coded a Decepticon. I was born from a biological, and after passing all the proper tests and a code read too was given the Ultimate Upgrade. I am now a Decepticon just like you but a few human traits have carried over, like feeling love for an offspring or liking to eat things."

*****
When Megatron literally put his foot down to protect the pegasus and ignited a blowtorch as well, the guards stepped back, not wanting to be burned alive or crushed underfoot. The pegasus said "Thank you, Leader Megatron. I know you have important stuff to do, so I'll just wait quietly behind you if you don't mind. If they catch me they will whip me again." This particular pegasus had deep whip scars upon his body. "If you do want to talk to me later I will offer you any help you might want. You can take a vial of my blood if it would be of any value to a lab back in Cybertron." And he retreated slightly behind Megatron, happy to wait-and just happy too that Megatron had stopped him from being beaten up by soldiers who might well have broken his wing bones.

The President of the Central Committee stepped forward, bowed and said "Welcome to Vallermoore, Leader Megatron. We have a cube of Energon Supreme that you gave us if you want to drink. As you can see, everyone here is amazed at the sight of you...some more then others. If you have things you want to ask about either in this public setting or privately just let me know."

[Victorious Decepticons]

SolarStorm's curiosity was piqued. He'd asked about being human quite a while ago, but now was more mature and could imagine more scenarios.

"Executed for killing someone!" SolarStorm was shocked at this. "That's ridiculous!! How else are you going to get rid of an enemy? Surely they don't expect you to just put up with some jerk forever~! I bet you know all sorts of ways to deactivate people in ways that make it so nobody knows it's you!" His eyes turned the clear red of someone thinking of connives, or in this case, the mere concept of doing something in a conniving way. "But then again, you'd lose half the point of bothering to kill someone if you did that. You're supposed to do it in the open so other people know not to mess with you OR ELSE. Your old society must have been all kinds of glitched to try to ban killing. I bet that had all sorts of bad results." Just what the bad results were, he didn't know. But he believed his SEDP, which said that too many laws led to a decayed and cowardly society.

"And you said you DIE after just 70 or 80 years even if you don't get blasted and you make sure to take care of your...your only body? Wait, seriously, you only get one body and can't transfer to another one even if you steal it?!?!" He couldn't imagine this. "Who coded that!! The SEDP says that a body that doesn't allow for out-transfer is not up to the Minimum Design Specification and shouldn't even be used. But then, you got out of yours and got into your first Decepticon one, so there must be some way to do it..."

"Interesting about you not needing a patch. And the eating thing. Is that why your mouth is so funny?" He referred to MasterBlaster's teeth, which he had realized were unique to his Coder or at least were very rare among robots. "I've never seen you eat anything, though..."

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

"You can wait over there by my troops," Megatron told the relieved-looking pegasus. "Make sure to stay where they can see you, or else they'll forget you're there and could step on you. I suppose you could fly out of the way, but better to avoid the need to do that." He noticed now that the pony had damage marks that appeared to be the result of violence. These biologicals, he thought to himself. Their bodies are so unsuitable for anything. If that was a Decepticon, those outer panels would already be in the pit.

Megatron turned so that he was facing at an angle that allowed him to address both the audience and the President at the same time. He began to speak loudly, clearly intending his words for the crowd even though he framed his statement as a response to the question.

"First let me say that I am glad to be here. It's rare that I visit a biological planet and am greeted by cheers rather than missiles. This is a nice change!" He laughed a bit. "I see that there are multiple species here, all apparently of the same or similar social ranks, and yet, you aren't busy warring each other to establish total domination. This is exceptionally unique to me. Most of the planets and nations I see have only one dominant species, and if there seem to be more, closer examination shows that the others have actually been brought into a nation by conquest and only have the illusion of equality."

"Biologicals are very strange and unique to me. That such small bodies can be so successful is a testament to...to the mysterious nature of the universe. I have seen humans up close many times, as you may already know, but I'm unfamiliar with the other two species I see here. Or is it more than two? I see many different types of ponies, and according to some taxonomies, each of those types would be better counted as a species of its own. In any case, it is interesting to see so many forms that are all classified as 'sapient' on one world."

"However, my first question, Mr. President, has little to do with that." Megatron turned now so that he clearly faced the President. "I would like to know the background behind your troops' hostility towards my fan there." He pointed towards the pegasus now standing close to his escorts. "I'll also accept my Cube now, if you don't mind..."

[Vallermoore]

(OOC-Sorry for the delay as rl was in the way.)

IC-"The effect of banning killing and indeed nearly everything that Decepticons are proud to do in Vallermoore was that most of the nation went soft, and relied on police and the law to settle their problems for them. Consider yourself lucky that you are a Decepticon war robot and not a squishy weakling biological. And yes, no matter how rich or successful you are as a human, you are stuck with one body. Humans...they code themselves with one part from one gender and another from the other one, and there is no quality control. Some are born defective through no fault of their own. There is one good thing about a biological body-if it gets a small cut or dent it can heal all by itself without any work necessary. If we get a dent, it's not just going to heal itself if we leave it alone, it'll get rusty instead. But that is the only good thing about a biological body, the rest of it is a lot of exhaust. I was transferred through a painful, gruelling process after several tests physical and mental and a code read on top of that. It was worth it though. One of these days I'll buy some food to eat in front of you. Small human traits remain in me, one is a liking for teeth. Humans need them for eating. If it was a real problem I could have Debugging edit out the need but no bot has ever attacked me because I wear teeth."

*****
Vallermoore

The pegasus smiled and flew over to somewhere where he would not be accidently crushed under a Decepticon foot, happy to be safe from the soldiers.

The President looked up at Megatron and felt very small indeed. He gestured for Megatron's Cube and ladle which were brought by large numbers of human soldiers. "Well, first, that pegasus showed disrespect to me by interrupting a state occasion. But apart from that, he has been known to rob, raid and steal on a regular basis. That flank symbol of his shows his special talent, which is basically crime. Fines, prison, and even flogging has not made him change his ways."

[Victorious Decepticons]

"No quality control!!!" SolarStorm was as horrified as any other Decepticon when he heard that. He paused for a bit and then scowled. "That means that biologicals must only stay existing because they make loads and loads of them. Humans must waste a lot of metal, er, whatever they're made of, on junk versions that they have to recycle! Well, that's pretty, um, weird. I think I'll play with my toys now..." While SolarStorm was creeped out, the main problem was just that he wasn't mature enough to digest more adult-level conversation yet and needed to relax a bit.

Soon, he began to play with his Decepticon and Autobot toys, and as the story he was acting out progressed, he placed toy Megatron and toy Optimus Prime in front of the dollhouse-sized Main Foundry that came with the set. The scene was instantly recognizable to any Decepticon citizen: This was a re-enactment of the Final Battle of the Cybertronian Great War. Within moments, he had the figures clashing and was slowly driving Prime towards the red-painted "pit" for the win when...

"HEY, IT BROKE!!"

Sure enough, one of Prime's arms was now hanging uselessly by the toy's side and the silver smokestack on that side had cracked, too. The Autobot toy lived up to its reputation as being made like junk, as was mandated by a little-talked-about government ruling. This ruling wasn't a secret, per se, but was buried in the fairly large manual on the Depiction of Decepticon Culture that was put out by the Bureau of Propaganda.

Despite the breakage, the bug within the toy was still well-hidden. DomIntel was smart enough to expect such events and place their own equipment accordingly.

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

Vallermoore

"He's been busted several times? Hmmmm..." Megatron looked displeased, though he didn't indicate why or with who. Internally, he calculated that the criminal pegasus was glitched. There was a big difference between doing crime because it was the most logical way to go about something, and doing it because of a psychological compulsion. In fact, there was a word for the type of person who never learned from punishment. Psychopath? Anti-social personality disorder? Ah, yes. It had been renamed as the second one. That was a rather serious glitch, and one that rendered the sufferer completely untrustworthy. After all, such a person would just as quickly try to kill Megatron and take over - at least, that's what would happen if the glitch wasn't fixed. Megatron decided not to mention the mandatory debugging done by Immigration, at least not yet.

This pony had offered blood for a sample. That was another strange thing. How'd he know that Megatron wanted something like that? This was interesting...maybe that was some of the "magic" that species was supposed to have. The pony didn't seem to be of the friendship-worshipping type, though. In any case, while he'd take a sample to be nice and not make a rebel, that pony's code certainly wasn't what he was looking for. He wanted the Code of the most docile and most hardworking ones - Code that could be used to clone ones that would be easy to turn into slaves, and strong enough to be worth having as slaves. Filling a mine with ponies like this pegasus would result in all of the ore being stolen and then a big slave revolt!

Of course, Megatron didn't say any of that out loud, but instead, simply thought it to himself silently. "Well," Megatron said, coming out of his silently-thoughtful state, "I can understand being irked by the disrespect of the interruption. However, it is clear that the typical deterrent methods don't work..." He took the Cube and ladle, being quite surprised to not get a glass to actually put the Energon in after he ladled it up. Fortunately, he carried one in his side panel, so he got it out at this point. A big Decepticon Seal was etched into the side and it had a gold rim. Soon, he had it filled with Energon and set the rest of the Cube on the ground.

"You really ought to make this stuff right here," Megatron began to quip. "I'm sure you'd get a lot of Decepticon 'tourists' if you had a big Energon refinery..." He winked and gave a big grin, letting the crowd know that he wasn't being serious.

"In any case, how about telling me about your people here. You mentioned that his Seal showed his special talent. I take it that it's not something he can control. Do ponies usually show these Seals, or can they hide or cover them for strategic reasons? If they can't hide them, does this result in a caste system? I can imagine castes arising very easily with such a unique trait. For example, if I wanted a mechanic, it would stand to reason that I'd seek out one with a wrench mark instead of one with a flower..."

[Vallermoore]

"It's worse then you think, under certain circumstances human offspring start automatically, even when the humans don't want an offspring. That never happens here. If you get the parts for an offspring, it does not start spontaneously putting itself together." MasterBlaster happily watched his offspring playing happily and remembered dimly when he was a small human child playing with toys. HEY, IT BROKE!!" MasterBlaster gently pressed the arm back on, and decided that now was not the best time to look for the bug that was surely in there.

*****
"Sapient ponies can show or hide their seals, but police on duty and employers offering a decently paid job have the right to see them. Most sapient ponies are proud of their seals, each of which indicates what they are best at. Another species that we have is the changelings. Would one of you changelings please show Leader Megatron what you can do?" A glossy black changeling the size of a large sapient pony flew over on dragonfly-like wings, landed, bowed, then took several shapes in quick succession, each with a short burst of green magical fire over it's chitin body. An earth pony with a hammer seal on it's flank was the first shape, then a pegasus with a cloud seal, then a unicorn with a star seal. Then a random human, after that a copy of the President himself, and then it took the exact shape of one of Megatron's troops, down to the Decepticon seals, only android size as it could not get any bigger then the size of an average human, before taking on it's normal shape.

"Leader Megatron, I am a changeling, I feed mainly on emotional energy," the changeling told Megatron. "And I can raid it from others too. As long as we changelings are treated reasonably by Vallermooreian authorities, we behave ourselves and refrain from causing trouble. Other then the few hard-core criminals amongst us, few of which are caught and punished despite spells that can detect a hidden changeling. You have nothing to fear from me; first I'm not going to disrupt a diplomatic visit, second you are far too big for me to take on, third...I like staying alive. You could just stomp on me or blast through my chitin in seconds if you thought I was a threat to you. If you were my size and wanted a strictly friendly duel with no permanent harm done to me or you, I would happily duel, but the last thing I want to do of course is anger you. I may be able to change into all manner of shapes, but changeling chitin is far weaker then Decepticon Steel."

[Victorious Decepticons]

"You raid emotional energy~? That sounds intrig..." Megatron stopped talking as he watched the creature take on a series of vastly different forms. Immediately, his eyes glowed and his expression took on one that was blatantly mischievous and quite a bit menacing.

"Wow! You could pull so much stuff with THAT!! I never thought I'd see a biological body that was actually useful before it had tons of recodes, but that changing ability is certainly an exception. I spotted odd fire between each switch - magic, I presume."

Internally, Megatron silently radioed the Bureau of Paranormal Research and ForIntel and ordered both agencies to start examining the recordings of the broadcasting that ForIntel was surely already making. This would have to be reverse-engineered ASAP!

"And you're willing to duel!" He resumed talking out loud. "I'm always happy when a biological isn't a coward. You do realize that even if I use a smaller form, it will still be made of Decepticon Steel?" And if I shrink this one, I can win just by getting close and then enlarging it again to splat you into a mist... but he didn't say that part.

"One question, though: If you feed off of emotional energy by nature, how can you avoid trouble? Do you settle for whatever is around? I have heard of Earthians who steal that sort of energy - 'emotional vampires' pr 'psychic vampires,' they were sometimes called - and they always ended up being some of the most disagreeable sorts because they constantly trolled to try to force people to generate whatever kind of energy they were after. And it was always some negative kind, too, like anger, frustration, or hopelessness. I didn't have much of a chance to see them in action, though."

[Vallermoore]

"I would be happy to duel but not to the death-I mean, if I somehow won I would have seconds before your bodyguards blasted me into small pieces of badly burnt chitin so either way I would die. But if it was a duel that stopped when the loser lost eighty percent of their strength, if it were me, I could regain it within days and you no doubt could repower your body with ease. And after the duel win or lose I will happily tell you what we changelings feed on and drain and what would hypothetically happen if Decepticon sized changelings somehow appeared on Cybertron. And perhaps you'll find my information useful. I mean, just imagine if you and your elite troops could take on multiple shapes without having to transfer from body to body. Not that one like you needs that ability anyway, I mean your blasters can cut through nearly anything, your armour is extremely strong, and if your body did get damaged, you can leave it for another as long as you have another one. But it would be good for those non-violent connives when you would rather steal oil secretly then openly raid the source. By the way; I doubt I could win against you, I really do doubt it, but I do have one advantage, you have never encountered me before. En garde!"

And despite Megatron's vast size, the changeling took advantage of it's newness to in effect get in one free blow, it's horn glowing green. If it could find Megatron's love energy, it could in effect hook into all his energy and drain his power and even his battery within seconds, leaving him without much power to run his huge body. However, it aimed this love-raid at the wrong place-the love reserved for coupledoms, and children, as that was where sapient ponies, humans, and most intelligent beings kept most of it's love. In the case of Megatron, this area was empty of love. Decepticons didn't do coupledoms point blank. One or two had tried in the distant past-with fatal results. They did have love for their offspring, but Megatron had decided a long time ago that he would never build an offspring. The reason why, was that he would want a perfect offspring-and yet a perfect offspring would want to overthrow him in time. And he was not going to build an offspring that he would have to blow up or melt down as soon as it became an adult.

So the raided area of Megatron was empty of love, and in raiding it, sensors had been triggered, and a message saying what the changeling was trying to do had been sent to the right part of Megatron's mind boards. There was love in Megatron-love for the Metal Planet of Cybertron , and love for the freewheeling Decepticon Way and what made a Decepticon a Decepticon. But with the surprise attack foiled, Megatron could easily erect a mental shield around that love, and then...if this was a fight to the death, the result would hardly need thinking about. Blaster fire would blow that changeling up, or metal feet or hands could crush it into a blood-stained lump or rip it in two pieces. But this was a *friendly* duel, not to the death, with a changeling who was perfectly willing to give free information which it could not give as a dead body. A way to win very quickly without killing the changeling would be to in effect mentally hack it and remove the love energy from it, leaving it with enough to live and speak but not much else, as a lesson as what happened even in a friendly duel, to any being who dared to attack Megatron. It would live, in time it would recover, but it would have learned a very important lesson about the superiority of machine life over biological life.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron's immediate response to the unexpected attack was to blast, and within half a second, he had already brought his engine to full rev and was aiming his fusion cannon. He had to catch himself before the rest of the sequence played out. Luckily for the changeling, he did manage to do this in time to avoid vaporizing the sudden challenger.

If Megatron was still an average Decepticon, he wouldn't have detected, and more importantly reverse-engineered, the attack in time to do anything. Fortunately for him, he had become a god not all that long ago. Now, it was a cinch to detect and analyze the incoming energy. Soon, he began to laugh in his trademark gloating way.

In the meantime, the changeling picked up an entirely different emotion when aiming for the areas related to coupledoms and children: Utter disdain mixed with haughtiness. Instantly, he knew that Megatron's feelings about this biological practice were very negative, and on top of that, that he felt that the Decepticon methods were far superior. Whether or not it was scientific, he clearly felt that pairing up was nuts and that starting offspring production by the random mixing of code snippets was a garbage way to keep a species going. The changeling could almost hear Megatron's snort at these concepts.

Soon, though, he detected nothing but a psychic jamming shield that Megatron had erected around his entire body and mind. He didn't just cover the part he figured the changeling would be trying to find next - he covered it all. That way, he wouldn't end up losing if it turned out that he had forgotten any aspects that could prove fruitful.

"Aha! Now I see what you're up to!" Megatron announced after putting up his psychic shielding. "Here's a tip: Make sure the refinery has oil before you try to raid it!" Megatron laughed with a booming voice. "Like THIS!" With that, he projected his own mental draw lines into the changeling's aura and began to extract energy with a speed fitting of a professional Decepticon raider. Those in the crowd soon saw a beam of light getting pulled from the changeling, but before it reached Megatron, it was split into two different beams. One seemed to be made of light energy, while the other was of an electrical nature. Megatron absorbed the electrical aspect into himself while sending the rest up into the sky where it dissipated harmlessly.

"You biologicals." Megatron gloated with his arms crossed in front of him as he continued the draw. "No matter what kind of energy you run on, you always have to have some kind of contaminant in it. Humans use food that's made of thousands of unnecessary chemical chains and then refine it after they eat it, and now you've got this energy that would have been fine but you like it laden with this worthless emotional content. Half of its energy isn't even good for charging a battery." Of course, he meant the part that made it 'love' energy instead of just plain energy. This was the aspect he was firing into the sky - effectively refining the incoming power back to pure energy before it ever reached his system.

As he did this, he analyzed the changeling's body to see if there were any other energy types he could leech from it. Soon, he found the energy of biochemical reactions, the kinetic energy of the creature's circulatory system, what seemed to be energy associated with maintaining a "changed" body, and even the emotional energy of "oh shit, this isn't working the way I planned!" He began to leech off of all of these while continuing the original raid. It didn't pay to be so picky as his opponent seemed to be. All energy was either good or could be refined into something good, at least in Megatron's opinion!

Despite this versatility, Megatron still preferred pure hydrocarbons for fuel. With a tank full of that, there were no wiring bottlenecks to worry about, and even better, the fuel would stay good as long as its chemicals remained physically intact - or, at least, no scientist had been able to stop combustion in an undamaged engine without physically destroying the fuel's ability to burn.

[Vallermoore]

For a second, the changeling thought she was going to die, as she looked down the barrel of Megatron's fusion cannon. She also found no love at all in the part of Megatron she raided, only disdain and haughtiness and dislike, and had to slam tight valves within her body to avoid being poisoned outright by negative feelings. Very quickly her further attempts to search within Megatron for whatever hidden love reserves were inside were blocked. Then she was aware of her own love reserves being sucked out, and split in two. One beam just burned harmlessly off into the sky, the other beam, the one Megatron could use without being swamped with unwanted love, went into his body, strengthening it still further. Just as the changeling thought she was going to be drained to death, Megatron stopped and the changeling's disguise failed. She stayed a changeling, but swelled to four times her previous size and an organic chitin crown grew from her head, revealing her as a Changeling Queen. Her fellow changelings each shared a small amount of their own energy with her, restoring her quickly to health, after which she bowled low before Megatron.

"Megatron, you have vanquished me, and what is more...you are a God. I ill send that message through the rarely used Hivemind of my Swarm. Now...how can I help you? I could lay eggs if you wanted for a Changeling Swarm of your own, within three months they would hatch,and within five years you would have fully grown, adult, dedicated changelings that you could use for mining, for spying, for combat or for all sorts of other purposes. However, we changelings require love to stay healthy and that is rare amongst Decepticons, I would guess. Sapient ponies leak it, and humans can be kidnapped and replaced to gain the love of their loved ones. We can take love from all manner of sources, it does not matter where it comes from. If you would rather not have your own Swarm to command, I could order a Changeling Drone to allow himself to be studied by your scientists, only asking in return that you let him live and stay healthy."

Every changeling present, open or undercover, was now in awe of this Great Decepticon who could defeat a Changeling Queen with ease, yet could also show enough mercy to let her live. Several were thinking they should become at the very least covert Megatron worshippers, as worshipping a god was said to strengthen it further. Not one had hostile thoughts; if Megatron was to suddenly announce himself as the new King of the Swarm, it was very likely that they would pay homage and swear a loyalty oath on the spot, without needing to be forced or enslaved into it.

The Changeling Queen sent a mental message to Megatron's mind. Sorry to send a direct message like this, but I can't be as open as I want to be with the Vallermoorian Government down my neck. If we could go somewhere private, I could openly swear loyalty to you and get my Swarm to do the same. We are only one of the Swarms, but we are one of the larger ones, thousands strong. We would need a love source to be somehow arranged for us, as starving hungry malnourished changelings would be of no use to you, and we would not expect you to give Decepticons to us. Such a thing would drive your faithful subjects into revolt and no way do we want that. But I bet you have human slaves-some of them would do just as well. I do wonder what Decepticon love tastes like though out of interest-would you give me just a tiny little taste? The smallest of sips will not harm you in the least.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron felt the change in energy as the fear of death filled his challenger. For just a moment, he intentionally allowed the nearly-full stream through to his system, blocking only the large amount of love that was still bogging it down. His curiosity drove his decision to do this - he wondered what it would be like to actually run on such an energy source.

Rather than catching the fear and becoming afraid, as would happen with typical empathy, he felt a rush that was almost drug-like. The feeling of having total domination over another being.
This, however, was far more powerful than what he usually felt in such a situation. He was using a direct feed this time, and emotionally (though not mechanically), it was like being hooked into a massive generator. He had full understanding of the being's recognition of his own supremacy, rather than the "inferred" understanding normally possible. A triumphant grin spread on his face, but he resisted the urge to throw his head back and simply revel in this powerful euphoria. His engine ran smoothly, but with strength as he enjoyed this new type of feeling.

Finally, he stopped his draws. Despite the drug-like effect, his experience and skill did not fail him. It was not a duel to the death, and just like in non-lethal challenges against his generals and other top soldiers, he was able to cease his attack at just the right moment.

"How could you help me...well, there are many ways. I would love to have a Swarm somewhere in the Empire, and of course, I'd also love to have several DNA samples so that the Biological Research Division could get a good idea of how your Code works. If your genes aren't made of DNA, then a sample of whatever stands in its place will work just as well. I've run into biologicals whose genes are coded from different stuff before. My scientists assure me that they could crack it if they got a sample."

When he heard the comment about kidnapping and replacing humans, he got an expression of recognition. "Ah! I have heard of that switcheroo tactic! That would make sense. Decepticon Earth, amazingly enough, has legends of that sort of thing. Of course, now I wonder if there are already changelings there. We haven't found any, though, even after the Invasion - and I would expect a changeling body to revert if it was deactivated. Perhaps those humans eradicated the local populations~? The humans on that planet were very efficient killers. It's very possible that they drove their changelings to extinction."

As the Queen mentioned sapient ponies leaking love, he glanced over at the one standing near his troops and one side of his lip turned just slightly upward. Obviously there were exceptions...

When Megatron started picking up a direct mental message, his antivirus started running with the adamance of a thousand suns. Surely there had to be some kind of trojan that was allowing this to happen! Finally his consciousness realized that, however this worked, it was not going to be via a method that his AV would detect. Still, he allowed the program to run through its entire heuristics program - more than one Decepticon was in his mines specifically because that one had figured that he "couldn't have" picked up a virus and didn't let their antivirus run through, and he was not going to join them because of making a cocky assumption. Once the program gave the all-clear, he processed the content of the message.

"You gave me quite a start," he mentally transmitted back. "I agree that we need a private place to meet. It would be against decorum to make such a declaration at a televised state event." A chuckle came through the signal. "ForIntel will be able to provide the coordinates of a suitable field or forest...of course, I would need to contact them first." When he processed the part about the Queen wanting a sip of Decepticon love energy, his demeanor changed, though he didn't become hostile.

"Ha ha ha!" He laughed out loud. Then he mentally transmitted, "Ha ha ha, I see you already have some practice with the Decepticon Way! Surely you didn't really expect me to fall for that. For you to do that, I would have to allow you to find out where such energy resides - if it exists at all, that is. I'd also have to drop my shielding. So, no, I'm going to pass on that. You'll have to find some other sucker. And you'll have to be careful in that, too - other Decepticons would be quite happy to show you what they can do, especially if they catch you trying to raid. We don't just practice raiding, but defense as well, and many would be glad to have the opportunity to tie both ends together..."

To the outside world, it seemed like a long bit of silence punctuated only by Megatron's one outward laugh, which was accompanied by his eyes going through a few different shades of color. If he was a human, his eyes would have been twinkling, but since he wasn't, the effect was quite inscrutable.

[Vallermoore]

The Changeling Queen knew that clearly Decepticon love was off limits-it would be incredibly dangerous to try and raid any Decepticon, as a failed raid would result in a large number of dead changelings, and changing into a newly coded Decepticon was impossible too because of the size difference. Perhaps if some changeling one day became a Decepticon, he would be persuaded to share a little Decepticon love voluntarily. Not all changelings would want to become Decepticons when they reached middle age, and of those who did, not all would be able to pass all the necessary tests to do so. For now they would be far more valuable as they were anyway. She spoke mentally again to Megatron.

I understand-it is good to be wary with changelings even if you are a mighty war robot and a god on top of that. For all you know if you were to grant a sip of your love I might be able to hack you so I don't blame you for saying No. For now if it's ok with you I want to stay behind you with that pegasus for safety, in case the government of Vallermoore tries to grab me and imprison me or worse. Once things are formally arranged you can assign a proper chain of command so that information from us can reach the proper place in your empire so it will be most useful, but right now, you are the only high ranking Decepticon I can speak to. I will send a message through the Hivemind. Agents in high ranking positions should stay where they are or they will blow their covers and be useless to your Empire, but I can have the rest with me within twenty-four hours. All you need to do is provide transport-that won't kill us or enslave us. We are far more useful to you as free subjects. I have agents in two human governments including Vallermoore's and one sapient pony government. Of course we will grant you our DNA. And with a flick of her gossamer-like insectoid wings she placed herself behind Megatron in a place where she would not end up under a Decepticon foot.

The President of the Central Committee looked on in horror. Having to let that pegasus go had been mildly humiliating, but now a Changeling Queen had sided with Megatron, and her Swarm would follow her. And changelings would be of great use to the Decepticons. Tests for androids would fail with changelings and they were experts at gathering information, hampered only by the need for the love energy that they ran on. He wanted to ask that the Changeling Queen be handed back to him, but from what he heard of Decepticons, they didn't do extradition. Any order to his guards to advance on the Changeling Queen would result in Megatron igniting that blowtorch in his hand. His guards were brave and well armed, but not stupid enough to argue with three huge war robots. If Megatron tried to kill him or grab him they would defend him to the last, but they would not start trouble.

He spoke. "Well, Leader Megatron, things are clearly going well with you. Do you want to take any questions from the people as a whole?" Behind him people, sapient ponies and changelings carried on watching with interest.

Unknown to him, the Changeling Queen sent a message through her Hivemind, telling most of her changelings to be ready to come to her side and to be ready not only to swear loyalty to Megatron but be ready to leave Vallermoore for a planet in the Decepticon Empire. She assured them that they would not be facing enslavement, starvation or death. All over Grand City and the surrounding area, nearly six thousand changelings prepared to obey her command. Changeling rule was similar in some ways to Decepticon rule, although a little stricter. There were few changeling laws as such within a Hive-treason and outright murder of a Changeling of the same Hive were banned, but not that much else, and direct royal commands were few. Years might go by before a royal order was given, such as to attend a royal coronation, deal with a true emergency or go on a massive love raid, but when a royal command was given, it was treason to disobey it, and treasonous changelings risked being killed or at least forced into hiding far from the Hive.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron didn't need to be any kind of expert in human emotion to know that the President of the Central Committee was ready to spit enough nails to keep the Decepticon Parts Company in fasteners for years to come. He was sure that if he wasn't a giant, intimidating war robot, there would likely have been some major hostilities - and the decision of the Changeling Queen to take cover near his escorts cemented that opinion.

For now, most of you will likely be under my direct command, Megatron transmitted to the Queen. I want to get to know you a bit more before deciding on further placements. Plus, you have indicated a willingness to take on many types of duties, and this makes me think that it wouldn't be strategic to put you all in the same divisions. One thing I am wondering is if your group has any pariahs...individuals who have, for whatever reason, been ostracized from the Swarm. The Biological Research Division would surely love to have a few expendables for advanced testing. Of course, if there aren't any, we can always clone some up, or at least I hope so... As for the transport, that won't be a serious problem. No Decepticon will want to give rides, but that's one of the things the draft is good for. Just tell me how many to expect, and I'll order military cargo-bots to be readied for live transport duty; they'll come as soon as they've been properly outfitted. About being more useful as free subjects - yes, that's likely true of those who are already in existence. But the Biological Labor Division could certainly find a use for some clones..." He hoped she would okay keeping cloned changelings as property. Without her okay, he would have to make pirated copies, and that could lead to difficulties later on.

Megatron turned to the President. "Yes, it would seem so!" He responded to the comment about things going well for him. "I appreciate your forbearance, by the way. You have more patience than I..." Megatron knew that if the tread was on the other foot, the battle would already be in progress. "And I'd be happy to answer any questions the people may have. I know that there are often plenty of misconceptions and questions about us, and I'd love to address them." He looked at the crowd and gave it a politician's grin while activating a hidden rear camera to make sure nobody sneaked behind him to steal his new loyalists.

[Vallermoore]

"I think if I had come to Cybertron and some miserable Decepticon traitor had wanted to defect to Vallermoore-and he was then joined by a Decepticon general of your spies who wanted not only to defect but take thousands of Decepticon spies with him...then I would end up crushed into the metal pavement by one of your feet, and not one of my delegation would escape either death or slavery," the President said. "But as you are a massive war robot, then defections from Vallermoore are fine with me. OK everyone, you can ask questions but don't expect Megatron to answer them if he does not want to-or for answers to be true if he does. He is a Decepticon after all and a politician. And ask them one at a time please-just because his computer brain is far better then ours does not mean he wants to be bombarded with questions all at once."

A clearly rich human Vallermooreian, because of his fine clothes and the two burly bodyguards and three servants that were with him, came forward a few steps. With him came a servant pushing a very pretty, but pale, young woman in a wheelchair. "I am Julius Anderson...and I made my money in the oil business. More then a year ago my daughter Eleanor was driving her car and ended up in a crash. A crash that broke her neck. She lived, but neither the best medics in Vallermoore or praying to either Holy Celestia or the lesser religions of Vallermoore would heal her, and she's on the verge of requesting euthanasia. I heard a rumour that you are indeed a true God. I have a ship half the size of the Orion with a cargo of refined oil. Not Energon as such, we don't know how to make that, but close to it. I'll give it to you legally so you don't have to go to the bother of raiding it, if you use your godly powers to heal my daughter's broken neck so she can walk and feel and be like she used to be. Oh, and I'll also convert to Megatronism as well. You might just think I'm trying to connive you of course-but given that you are a hundred feet tall with feet that could crush me, hands that could tear my weak fleshy limbs off and blasters that could cremate me alive, I would have to want to commit suicide to connive you whilst mere feet from you."

The Changeling Queen said telepathically to Megatron "I have three criminals within my Swarm to give to you as outright slaves, I can lay up to two hundred and fifty eggs a day and you can have a day's clutch to do with as you like, you can use Changeling DNA when you get it...and if all of that is still not enough, I know the location of most of a rival swarm of red shelled chitin changelings, unlike our black chitin. Changeling Swarms tend to dislike each other immensely. Of course, the rival Swarm would fight and flee rather then give up and spend their lives as mine slaves or worse, and they can turn pretty spiky or pretend to be rocks and hide. If you send small androids in, they could and would impersonate the androids. To use changelings as they are now as slaves, there is a problem, in that without a love source of some kind, they would die within a week of hard labour. All changelings as they exist now need a love source to stay healthy and capable of work. Oh...and my Swarm-not counting agents in high positions who can't go without losing said positions and Changelings near the end of their lives...six thousand and seventy-five healthy adult Changelings, more then a thousand nymphs-child changelings less then five years old, and five hundred eggs. That'll be quite a few transports needed to carry them all. I would love to see the Metal Planet-just for the amazingness of it all."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Clones from DNA are probably the best bet for general labor, Megatron transmitted to the Queen. Then we can code out the need for such rare fuel and make it so they run on something plentiful in the mines, such as the sense of duty, the energy of blind loyalty, the fear of the overseer, or even on the hopelessness so prevalent in mines that use wild captives. As for that other swarm, their needs won't be a problem once we get the patch done. I can tell you don't like them, so I'm sure you won't mind them getting altered...

Eggs would be good too, though not so much for the mines. However, I would like to raise some as true Decepticons right from the start, away from other influences. He paused a bit.

But what's this about making criminals into slaves?! What kind of 'crime' did they commit? His engine speed ticked up just a notch.

When the President made his comment, he gained Megatron's full attention.
"SPY!! GENERAL!!" Megatron interjected as two separate words as he whipped around and faced the changeling. "So you're not just capable of spying, but are already a spy in the direct employment of the Vallermooreian Government! So, are you all willing to submit to mind reading to prove that you are not double agents? I'm certainly not going to just trust you now..." His expression showed a mixture of outrage and bemusement. He always enjoyed the chess game aspect of the Decepticon Way. On the other hand, he wasn't used to such flagrant attempts as this might be.

Mind reading was a capability that wasn't common among Decepticons, and it was a bit risky as well. Therefore, ForIntel strongly preferred the mind-transfer/code-read method. However, that method resulted in the death of the biological body, and he didn't want to commit to either roboticizing or deleting these changelings. If she agreed to being mind-read, Megatron would assign Decepticon Intelligence to the task. The few who could do it were very good at avoiding the contraction of viruses during this process.

When the human came up and explained why his daughter was sitting in that contraption, he couldn't help but get a wry grin. Yet more damage caused by the automotive design tree.

"Autobots are evil," he said with derision. "See, even the things that merely look like them cause damage." He paused, and activated magnified vision to see Eleanor clearly. "Ah yes, now I remember. The main command cable runs down the neck of a human. It's also very complicated, with thousands of flexible wires. Excuse me a moment..." Megatron appeared to go into a trance for a couple of minutes, but he was actually pulling up his files from the Biological Research Division that showed how that was supposed to work. He already had the general idea, but needed far more detailed information to be able to actually fix it.

"Excuse me," he said to those directly around him. "If I may sit..." He began to sit immediately, leaving anyone in the way the choice of agreeing and moving out of the way or being splatted. Then he looked at Eleanor. "I have the necessary files active now. If your escorts will bring you to me and lay your body face-down in my hand here," he held out his left hand, flat and near the ground, "I should be able to effect this repair. Your legs will hang off of the end of my palm, so they'll need to be careful that you're situated safely. By holding you in one hand, I'll have you close enough to use my other hand to direct the energy. Your face will likely be rather uncomfortable being flat against my hand, but I have to be able to touch the back of your neck - and a pillow would block your air intakes."

"Once you're here, I'm going to knock you out for a few minutes. It is supremely unpleasant to have a command cable fixed when the mind-boards have become used to trying to get a signal through by transmitting everything at top volume, and that's what happens when the cable has been broken like yours. Biological systems are especially sensitive to feedback loops, and try to compensate for the lack of one by 'yelling louder,' so to speak. Fortunately, you don't have to be awake during the recalibration process."

"Oh, and don't be worried by my use of Cybertronian terms for parts and processes. When it comes to things like the command cable, the purpose of the parts is much the same. We also both have calibration sequences that make it so that the mind can generate the appropriate signal strength for bodily movement commands."

"One question, though: Can you speak? Speech commands run through a separate cable on the human body, so if you've been muted, I'll need to fix that separately. I think you should be able to - at least in terms of nerve functionality - since that network also handles breathing and heartbeat and you aren't dead, but since your father is the only one who's talked so far, I figure I should make sure. It could also be that your larynx was physically smashed along with the other part of your neck, which would be a different type of repair altogether."

While Megatron usually would have had some smart-mouthed remark to make about how humans worked, the fact was that even the Decepticons hadn't found a great way to avoid having a command cable that ran through the neck. Even though the motion-boards were in the chest, there still had to be a communication link to them from the mind-boards - and the best way to connect it was usually to drop it right down in pretty much biological style. Some body designs (including Megatron's) took steps to mitigate this so that there would be a backup control method in case that cable was cut, but the backup system wouldn't be as efficient as the normal method of operation.

[Vallermoore]

Everyone except the two other Decepticons jumped when Megatron shouted, and several hands and hooves were pushed over ears for a short time in case he carried on shouting. For a couple of seconds the President smiled. As it turned out, whilst changelings certainly did spy for Vallermoore, they came from a certain red-shelled variety whose Queen had been bribed with both plenty of Chingchings and a love supply from prisoners serving very long sentences who had been quietly handed over to be cocooned. These black shelled Changelings were not spies for Vallermoore, but maybe Megatron would believe they were and kill the Changeling Queen. All he had needed to do was gently implant that suggestion in Megatron's mind boards.

The Changeling Queen flew up and deliberately perched on one of Megatron's fingers and said publically "I am no Vallermooreian spy, and am willing to put my royal life on the line for it. If you or your fellow bots can read my mind without leaving me dead or brain damaged as a result, I will happily open it to you to be read and order my Swarm to do the same. The President wants me dead-what better way then to lightly implant the idea in your mind boards that we serve the Vallermooreian Government? If mind reading proves me to be spying for them, fine, you can crush me like an oversized insect, but whilst all changelings spy a little for their own Hive to find love sources and avoid foes, neither me or my Swarm is spying on you." She flew off the finger and back to where she was before. Privately she said to Megatron If you want to kill and capture government narks, it's the red shelled changelings that do that, narking is one of their main jobs. Most of them like nothing more then to go undercover just to nark to the Vallermoore Police about robberies and raids. We black shells do not claim to all be perfect paragons of the Decepticon Way, no biological is perfect, but we don't inform like the red shells. Indeed, most Changeling Hives despise the red shells as they happily inform on other Swarms.

When Megatron sat down the pegasus had to gallop out of the way of the descending metal bottom. The servants gently brought Eleanor over to his metal hand and she managed a faint smile at the thought of maybe being healed. Her voice was thin and reedy but it worked. "I can speak and swallow but not much else," she said, looking up without much fear at the giant Decepticon. Crippled as she was, if he did choose to kill her death would be a blessing, but she was also confident that he was indeed going to heal her.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"You can be sure that I will take you up on that offer," Megatron told the Queen. "In fact, if you hadn't mentioned it, I was going to insist on it. Mind readers from Foreign Intelligence will arrive at the pickup point - as will a crew of top Debuggers, who will make sure that the agents don't end up with any unauthorized coding added."

When she mentioned the "red shells" and "we black shells," the only reason Megatron didn't roll his eyes was because eye panels don't roll. What is it with biologicals and their fixation on housing color?! He aggravatedly thought to himself without transmitting. He was also skeptical of the specifics of the claim. Chances are, he guessed, the Black Queen just wanted to get him to attack the other Swarm. After all, the President had just gotten through trying to incite him to flatten this Queen, and national cultures often spread across all groups. There was a high chance she'd pull the same sort of thing on her enemies...

Once he began to think about repairing the human in his hand, he stopped putting much CPU power on the other issue.

"You'll feel a very slight jolt," Megatron told Eleanor as he extended one of his finger prods. "I'm going to stimulate your vagus nerve, which will cause you to faint. Once you wake up, you should be repaired, but if you wake up too soon I'll re-stimulate it..."

Before he did this, he gave another quick look at his files. It turned out that instead of having thousands of nerves to reassemble, the spine itself only had 31 pairs of them. These main nerves branched out into thousands only after they left the spine. Medically, the problem with reconnection boiled down to two main things: The slow (or even no) growth of this form of nerves, and the presence of scar tissue at the damage site. Most importantly, it turned out that the lack of growth seemed to be caused by the genetic switches governing these cells. Normally, they only allowed the nerves to lengthen as a biological grew bigger, but never turned on to allow for the repair of severe damage even if the bio was a child when it happened. "What the slag kind of a design is that," he groused, like an engineer who saw something done in a way he believed to be poor.

Eleanor didn't have a chance to respond to his muttering - he stimulated the vagus nerve, and she was out like a light. Soon, Megatron's eyes got very dark as he put the majority of his processing power onto the needed repair. First, he used his mind to change the DNA switches in the spinal nerve cells to unlock the repairability that, as far as he was concerned, should have been on by default. Then he mentally vaporized the scar tissue that was in the way of the planned connection point. Finally, he used more-advanced divine power to create a very tiny area in which time progressed about 1,000 times faster than normal. With the genes set to allow for self-repair, her own body began to grow new nerve tissue immediately - and thanks to the sped-up time around that one part of her neck, the job was done within a few minutes rather than the 1+ year it would have taken the genetic change to work.

Suddenly, Eleanor's entire body began to convulse wildly, and Megatron - whose eyes had returned to normal now that the actual work was done - carefully put his right hand over it to keep the limbs from being able to bang around hard enough to break bones. "This is normal," he told the crowd. "Her system is now in the process of recalibrating. Full recalibration isn't very elegant in biological bodies because there hasn't been a need for a smooth system to develop, but at least it does happen."

After about 10 minutes, the body stopped convulsing in such a scary way, though a few twitches were still happening. Eleanor was also panting and sweating thanks to the sudden increase in physical activity. About 15 minutes after it all started, she woke up again and immediately sat up. Megatron made sure to move his restraining hand as soon as he felt any sort of deliberate motion so that she didn't hit her head - and so the crowd could see the success.

[Vallermoore]

What had been said about the red-shelled changelings was in fact partly true but exaggerated. Some changelings from that hive did spy for Vallermoore, and they had indeed informed on other swarms and so were not popular amongst Changelingkind in general, but the narks were in the minority. It was true though that that swarm's Queen knew about the narking and approved of it. If expressed as a percentage, it was 30% true and 70% exaggerated. Where should we meet your transports and when?the Changeling Queen asked, seemingly not worried in the least about being mind read.

When Eleanor stood up, clearly healed and able to walk again, her father hugged and kissed her and bowed to Megatron. And the crowd cheered loudly. "Thank you. You have indeed healed her and now I will make sure that oil is yours. Although I do respectfully suggest that you radio ahead to make sure it reaches your coffers and is not just stolen by the first Decepticons that encounter it." Within only a matter of minutes the ship he had mentioned with it's cargo of refined oil was indeed on it's FTL trip to Cybertron. Assuming Megatron took steps to give it a Military escort, the oil within would soon be turned into Energon Cubes and safely inside Megatron's vaults. There were a few random questions asked one at a time. One was not surprising. "Is it possible for a human to become a Decepticon robot?"

Another, from a pastel-coloured unicorn pony was rather personal. "Do you Decepticons have romantic coupledoms?"

A third was "From what little I've heard about Cybertron, it not only has no police but few or no laws. What keeps it from complete and utter chaos and widespread gang warfare that disrupts everything?"

After the third question, the President of the Central Committee raised his hand and said to the crowd "I think three questions are enough, you don't want to make a towering war robot annoyed with you, do you?"

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron addressed the Queen: Before I send for the cargo-bots, you personally will need to meet me at... Megatron quickly consulted ForIntel over his internal radio... The clearing at the forest 50 miles west of here. Once you get to the forest's edge, go in another 5 miles and you should see it. My intelligence agents will be there for that mind-reading. The cargo-bots will only be sent for if you pass.

Before speaking openly, Megatron quickly radioed General Shockwave, one of his most loyal generals, and ordered him to send troops to meet the incoming oil ship.

"That oil's the kind of tribute I can appreciate," he said to the oil magnate. "Never mind burnt offerings or lamp oil or any of that. You can't drink that!" He laughed, referring to the types of offerings usually dedicated to gods. "As for you," he turned to Eleanor, "I don't think I need to tell you that Autobot-lookin' things belong in the slag. If you absolutely MUST roll around, at least use an armored van next time!"

Finally, Megatron addressed the new questions.

"It certainly is possible for a biological to become a Decepticon, but this is not something we offer on a general basis. Only Decepticons may have Decepticon bodies, so the first step is to become a citizen - and to do that, you must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can live in our society and that your mindset is such that you will WANT to live in OUR society, rather than agitating later to try to change it into your society. We take our culture very seriously - and we are well aware of the risks of foreigners trying to change it 'one bolt at a time,' so to speak.

"Once you pass the citizenship test, the next step is to port your mind to a new Decepticon body. This is the final requirement for citizenship. Everyone who has gone through the process describes it as absolutely excruciating, so it's definitely not to be taken lightly. Occasionally, the level of pain is such that it overwhelms the stability of the incoming system and we lose the person. Fortunately, that is rare, but nobody will deny that it's painful. This is because the biological system is set up to cause the maximum possible motivation to avoid anything that will clearly lead to the death of the body, and since it takes a few hours to port all of the data, it has plenty of time to calculate what's going to end up happening. Its calculations are correct in one regard, and this is that the biological body will die when the process is complete. The body's calculations, however, do not take into account that the mind will live on and actually be improved. Of course, from our standpoint, the solution to that is simple: We strap the new immigrant into a chair so the process cannot be interrupted."

He turned to the pony.

"Decepticons have no such arrangements," Megatron said. "First, we gain no survival advantage from it, unlike those of some sexually-reproducing species. Decepticon offspring not only do not need two parents at any point, but would also find it confusing to try to balance the demands of more than one Coder. The Coding itself is always best done by one person, too - whenever more than one get involved, they end up trying to change each others' work and the final result is full of glitches. This makes it so that there has never been a reason to add a pairing drive to Decepticon Base Code, and so that there are several good reasons to actively avoid doing so."

"The second reason we don't do couples is that we don't get any perks from the arrangement. We robots don't have sex, so having a ready partner for that isn't even part of the equation. Psychologically, we usually see each other as competition, and will be much more relaxed when there's nobody around to mess with us or our stuff. While we get along fine enough when it comes time to do deals, we don't want to have to worry about somebody getting up to things back at home."

Megatron seamlessly moved to the third question. "Ah, you ask about the glory that is Decepticon society! Well, the first thing I'll note is that there IS plenty of gang warfare - just not everywhere or all the time. The reason it doesn't disrupt everything is because we've been doing this for almost a thousand years. This has given us plenty of time to make the adaptations needed to keep things going with only minor inconvenience. During the nation's early years, there was indeed plenty of chaos - but when I insisted that we, as a people, would remain strong and not like the nations that allowed themselves to be overrun with weak, police-dependent people, the population began to devise ways to handle themselves and do business that would reward the strong while giving any emerging weaklings the trip to the foundry that they deserved."

"In any case, you asked specifically about gang warfare. When it comes to this, one of the biggest factors is the simple matter of cost/benefit analysis. Gang warfare costs the combatants money, materials, and sometimes, members. This eats into profit, and profit is the motive behind most Decepticon gang activities. Therefore, while there is almost always a battle going on *somewhere* on Cybertron, it isn't nearly as common as it would seem. It was at first, yes, but people learned that it was best to only get into a gang war if there was the chance of some serious gains. Since we do most of our raiding off world, inter-gang fighting on Cybertron usually does NOT result in such a chance. There's just no benefit in claiming to be the kings of two blocks instead of one. There is, however, plenty of benefit in being able to control multiple barren oil worlds - but controlling a planet, even one with no extant life on it, requires some serious botpower. The vast majority of gangs can only hold part of a single oil field, and trying to drive someone else off of that field will just cause them to leave their original position open."

"That said, combat on Cybertron is common enough that people have taken steps to minimize both disruption and collateral damage. Stores are typically equipped with blast shades, which are external blaster-proof window shades that automatically drop when firing is detected. Most street battles take only a few minutes, which makes it so that the disruption is minimized. People who happen to be out in the street when a battle occurs typically just stand at a safe distance, but sometimes a few will join in and it'll become a brawl." Megatron clearly thought the idea of a brawl sounded fun. "Most of these battles, however, are not GANG battles. Instead, it's just people with individual beefs who happen to spot their enemies and decide to light 'em up."

"Of course, that's just one aspect of Decepticon life. But in every aspect, we have developed cultural methods for dealing with things that allow society to go on pretty much without too much disruption, and without surrendering our personal strength to police or other such agencies. We think it is a superior method. For example, if someone came out of an alley at you with a big knife and demanded your money, you'd probably feel compelled to hand it over. Then you'd call the cops, and chances are, you'd never see your wallet ever again - and even if they caught the guy, which is unlikely considering that he will have had a long time to disappear while you waited for the cops to come, the punishment wouldn't be a deterrent. He'd just go do it again later. Like this pony here." He pointed at the one behind him. "Obviously 'the law' hasn't worked worth a ten-cent counterfeit when it comes to him!"

"In Victorious Decepticons, if someone tried to mug you, you'd open fire on that guy without hesitation. Then if you didn't deactivate him with your first blast, you'd fight until one of you either fled or was damaged beyond fighting any further. If either side flees, the mugger doesn't get the money, so his only chance of getting a profit is to be able to totally trounce you and then actually do it. He will take a beating in the process even if he wins, and the money he steals from you might not cover his own repair costs. There'd also be a good chance that the mugger would be the one who'd lose instead of you, so he'd think it over really good before he even tried attacking. All of this makes it so that in most areas of Cybertron, your chances of running into a mugger or similar type are probably lower than in this very city, at least unless you're some obviously-weak pile of rust."

"The cost/benefit analysis of being a mugger or most other kinds of domestic 'criminal' only works out where there are laws in place to protect the 'criminal' from proper retribution - by forbidding you from just shooting him, beating him nearly to death, or otherwise decisively handling him on your own. Of course, the ones who make laws say they're to protect 'innocent, law-abiding citizens.' But it doesn't matter what the laws are officially supposed to do. What they ACTUALLY do is make it so the cost/benefit ratio moves strongly in favor of what you would call crude criminality - robberies and the like. Con-bots are another story; they typically plan it so that they are far away from their targets when their connives are detected. But those aren't the ones who cause the kind of overt chaos that you were speaking of. They can, however, be more damaging to a society..."

Megatron didn't say so, but recalled to himself how it was individual con-bots who made it so that Cybertron once almost rusted out from underneath its people. No raid gang had ever caused damage even remotely close to that.

[Vallermoore]

When the ship full of refined oil reached the edge of Decepticon controlled space, which it did not long afterwards, it would meet up with General Shockwave and a military escort. Many a Decepticon would watch it with envy and long to raid it and everything inside, but they knew better then to challenge the Military in general and General Shockwave in particular. Every High General had at some stage on the way up in rank had to deal violently with other Decepticons for some reason or other. Soon enough all that refined oil would be Energon Cubes inside the Megatron vaults where they belonged.

*****
The magnate bowed to Megatron and said "For healing my daughter you deserve every drop. I'll make sure that if she drives again her car will have the best safety devices. Of course for you, cars have...no doubt, very bad memories."

The person who asked about becoming a Decepticon clearly either was not serious about it, would not be able to pass Immigration's strict tests, or both, as he thanked Megatron politely and stayed where he was. The pony nodded and said "To each their own. Your society is perfect for war robots, just as mine is perfect for sapient ponies. May it stay uncorroded for as long as life in all it's forms exists in the universe. With you in charge, it will."

It was clear that although the people here were not exactly Decepticon loyalists, they could certainly see and understand Megatron's point of view and many at least partly agreed with it. When he had told them about it they clapped and cheered politely. Soon enough this State Visit would be over unless Megatron had any other plans for it. It had been a pleasant change for Megatron; normally biologicals were either shooting at him, or terrified and on their knees begging for their lives. It had also got him freely given refined oil. And possibly a lot of help from a hive of Changelings-if they could be trusted.

*****
The Changeling Queen bowed once more to Megatron and flew off with a whirr of her gossamer-like wings. Once out of view of the President of the Central Committee, she changed shape into a purple pegasus with a heart for a cutie mark. If any pegasui in the police force were quietly despatched to catch her they would not be able to find her. Soon enough she reached the area and sent out a message through the Hivemind. Changelings in high positions were to stay where they were, so were any who hated or greatly feared Decepticons or had ever had a negative encounter with one in the past. In exchange for their spying skills the Decepticons would provide them with slaves to feed off instead of enslaving or killing them. And after many years of service, any changeling who both wanted to become a Decepticon and could pass the needed tests would be uploaded into a Decepticon body rather then growing old and dying. The three criminal changelings were to be brought along too. Soon enough a changeling joined her, and then another and another and then enough so she could take her true form..

They came in pairs, in tens and twenties, in hundreds. They left their jobs inside and outside the Hive, they left their non-changeling boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives, they brought Changeling larvae and unhatched eggs with them, and bowls of water for the trip. This was a true adventure for the Swarm. About 5% were in very high positions, as magnates, government members and other such jobs, and stayed where they were. Another 5% were so scared of Decepticons that they did not join the rest of the Swarm, but over six thousand Changelings did show up. The water they brought might be likely to cause problems if not secured properly or left behind. Although the insides of cargo bots could not be described as delicate, unsecured water was certainly not welcome, for the same reason that biologicals preferred it if corrosive substances did not touch their bodies. Some cargo bots actually had it so that liquid water touching their insides would set off mild pain. Better to have a small amount of ouch that could be cleaned up quickly, then rust forming inside their bodies and in the worst case, spreading unchecked.
Soon enough they would reach the area Megatron had indicated to their Queen.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"Cars." Megatron's eyes narrowed as he allowed a few memories to come to mind. "Your daughter likely has some of the feelings a Decepticon veteran of the Cybertronian Great War...that feeling when the thing that was supposed to be neutral suddenly becomes the instrument that delivers lethal or near-lethal energy to your body." He looked at Eleanor. "Now imagine if your car specifically transformed into a hostile enemy robot and did it on purpose. That *every* car tried to do it, and always on purpose."

"Logically, I know that the cars in a nation like this should be incapable of transforming. But I doubt you'll find any Great War veteran who won't ready up upon seeing one, or hearing one's engine, or smelling the exhaust of one...just in case the thing does turn out to do more than it ought to. I know that *I* will never trust a car."

"Technology-wise, cars are fine enough for beings who can't easily build themselves to be able to fly. But for us Transformers, such a design spec is nothing more than absolute stupidity. We never did figure out any reason for the Autobots choosing that type of style. It made no sense! Who would stay bound to the ground when flying is just a matter of making some new dies and setting up a couple more engines?!? Well, we know who - the Autobots. But who can decipher the reasoning of the insane? For all we know, it really was always as simple as 'Decepticons fly, so Autobots won't.'"

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

Megatron looked at the crowd in general, glad that the others hadn't asked him to do any more repairs. He was a god of war and connivery, dammit...while repairs were impressive, he didn't want people to start confusing him for that other crowd-drawer, Jesus, who was WAY too prone to preach pacifism and other totally un-Decepticon things.

"Thank you for coming out today," Megatron said to the people as if he was an entertainer. "If you have any other questions, feel free to direct them to the Decepticon Cultural Liaison's Office. Of course, if the office gets a large amount of calls, there may be some long hold times until they hire more liaisons, but they'll still be glad to take your queries. Those who want to immigrate, on the other hand, should contact the Immigration Division instead."

Next, Megatron thanked the President for the invitation, and noted how nice it was to be able to go to a biological world and not have anyone try to shoot him down. "Of course, I also realize that the reaction might have been different if I landed at a refinery," he added.

Finally, he looked at the Pegasus pony who had first come up to him. "I believe you will be in some rather big trouble if I just leave you here," Megatron said. "Perhaps you'd like me to take you somewhere safer? You'd have to ride in my hand, though, unless you can fly at about 10 times the speed of sound..." The Decepticon Leader did not intend to putter along, that was for sure. However, he also thought that there was a chance the pony could go that fast due to magic, so he figured he'd better ask. Either way, he figured he'd take the guy to the clearing where he'd be meeting the Changeling Queen, not realizing that he would actually find almost the entire swarm waiting.

As he said these things, he'd been using his multithreading to run his internal radio. ForIntel mind readers soon entered FTL and were on their way to the clearing. Cargo-bots were ready to go too - but they were ordered to stay on Cybertron until the mind readers had cleared the changelings for admission.

[Vallermoore]

Eleanor frowned at the thought of that. No wonder Decepticons hate cars so much. It's a good thing that all cars were kept away from this particular area.
*****
The pony said "Thank you, if those soldiers caught me they would throw me into prison and smash my wing bones. Only one pony can fly at your speed, Rainbow Dash, and I am not her." He happily went into Megatron's hand. Although they knew better then to say anything, the two bots with him were mildly surprised that their Divine Leader would give a sapient pony a ride. Those Decepticons who knew about sapient ponies generally despised them even more then most biologicals for their "Friendship is Magic" stance. Whilst Decepticons did occasionally make friends with each other, it was rare.

*****
The forest clearing was full of chittering Changelings, excited about their new lives that they would have working for the Decepticons. When several Decepticons turned up and landed, they scattered to make way for the giant bots but soon reformed. Their Queen had warned them very clearly before the Decepticons arrived "Do not, repeat do not, try and steal any Decepticon love. First, they would see it as an attack and react accordingly-with their blasters and by stepping on us. The only time it might be safe to do so would be if a Decepticon was so injured or rusty as to be incapable of fighting back-and even then it would be unwise unless we had no other food source. Second, they don't hold their love in the normal places, I don't know where it is or if it even exists. If all goes well, they are not going to turn on us or starve us as our spying skills can be of great use to them."

To the Decepticons, they were the size of large beetles and looked rather like them, and one of the Decepticons who had done a bit of time as a cargo bot long ago frowned at so much unsecured water that they had brought with them. One sharp turn in FTL and this water could go gushing out over the cargo bot's hold.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron gave the President a short bow and thanked him for the meeting. Soon, he was off, heading in the general direction of the clearing but not directly to it. Over his secret frequency, he began to communicate with his escorts.

"If I left this pony there, they would have turned him into reject parts before the hour was over," he said. "And I wouldn't have that happening to someone who came up in front of everyone and prostrated himself to me. It would be awful PR and make it seem like I would do nothing for loyalists. Plus, he has more to offer us. For one, he offered me a code sample, and until we capture some other ponies, it'll be the only one we have of that species..."

Soon, he secretly radioed ForIntel and got the location of a different clearing - one of the many random ones that wasn't under surveillance, or at least wasn't known to be under it. Megatron and his escorts put their full cloaking on, and soon landed quietly in the opening.

"Now before you fly off, I'll be taking you up on that blood sample offer," Megatron said to the pony after decloaking enough to be partially seen. Even with this phantom-like view of the Leader, it was likely clear to the pony that trying to back out would result in the forceful removal of said sample, though Megatron didn't openly threaten it. "I'd also like to ask you a few questions that would not have been good to mention on camera or in front of the feds. Let me start by asking you just how this 'friendship magic' works - in detail."

~~~~~~~~~

In the larger clearing, the mind-readers landed without incident. Though one noticed the water, he didn't say anything. If the cargo-bots were called for, they would surely deliver the "no loose water" message on their own. The fact that water had been brought, however, made another thing come to mind: Just how much of the stuff did changelings need in order to keep functioning? Life-support-equipped cargo-bots did have water as part of their kits - in secure bottles much like those found in hamster cages (and, in fact, the design had been swiped right off of such bottles) - but not in huge amounts. It would be enough to keep humans going for about a day, but if the changelings needed more, they would end up being very thirsty by the time they got to their new world.

First, though, the mind-readers had a more important task: Clearing the Changeling Queen of suspicion. For this, they had brought along plenty of protection. The designated reader had made a Save, and after mind-reading the Queen, his current data would be compared to that on the Save to make absolutely sure no virus, Code corruption, or other bad things had happened to him. Being "back-hacked" was a serious risk with this sort of maneuver, and the other ForIntel agents were standing ready with that Save to reverse any such thing if it happened. They were also ready to commit a massacre if it seemed like the most strategic thing to do.

"Come forth, Queen, and let us see your true intentions," The designated agent announced. "Or, if you've decided to chicken out, fly away now."