An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

After eliminating the black hole, Megatron had looked around for the enemy but hadn't found her. He then went back to the Main Military Base and gave the order for a full-scale invasion of Equestria. This invasion wouldn't be happening that night, as originally planned, but instead would take place as soon as the Military was ready to take off.

Take-off wasn't immediate - everyone had to drink their fill of Energon, make sure their systems were in great shape, and stock up with extra Energon to drink once they arrived in the battle zone. Not only that, various High Generals were in locations other than the base, and they all had to be called up. Finally, a contingent of about 100,000 was outfitted with the new enchanted armor, now out of beta, in preparation for the expected magical battles. This Magical Battalion was headed up by General Shockwave, and would be in position directly behind Megatron and the High Generals when they arrived in Equestrian Space.

Overseers of slaves were often thought of as cowards by the promoters of supposed freedom, and unfortunately, this was often a true stereotype. As a driver of humans, they could feel like big men without any danger to themselves, and they quickly talked up how essential it was to keep mine production going in order to dodge any chance of entering battle. There was, however, one exception: the one who went by the name of Overseer. After finding someone to guard his mine, he gathered about 9 willing bots and several large transport gliders. If all went right, his mine would be the very first to have pony slaves.

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

SolarStorm was impressed by the shiny metal roundness of Cybertron; clearly engineered to perfectly hold its orbit rather than wobbling slightly like an organic world. Even so, the Metal Planet was the one he was familiar with and the only one he really knew, so it wasn't the amazing thing it would be to a foreigner. Instead, he was amazed by this new planet, Equestria. It had so many different types of weather and atmospheric conditions! Frozen water, thick clouds of vapor, and...

Suddenly, a lightning bolt hit him. That wasn't very fun, but he didn't have much time to complain because he was soon "wowing" at what he saw next: A big group of ponies jumping on the cloud the lightning had come from!

"Hey, there's a bunch of little dancers up there!" He first said. Then he realized that their jumping was making lightning come out of the cloud. "HEY! Those piles of reject parts are ATTACKING me!" With that, he opened fire on the group of pegusi, intending to turn them all into pony-shaped chunks of charcoal.


Before long, the skies over the ponies' planet darkened as if there'd been a solar eclipse. Only artificial light remained as that of the sun was blocked by the thick blanket of incoming Decepticons.

The Decepticons in the way of the cannons quickly swerved to the side and back - but came back so fast that they ended up back in the way before the balls had passed. Somewhere in the back, General Carjack held back a snicker. He was well familiar with that sort of thing. It was the reason why Stage 0, rather than Stage 254, was the deadliest on the video game Galaga: After being used to high-speed maneuvers and weaponry for so long, something SLOW threw the player's timing off and often put an end to a good run. Fortunately, unlike the bombs on the game, cannonballs were in limited supply.

It was mere seconds before one of the billions of robots fired back and took out the cannons, but soon, energy blasts started coming up at them. Dodging maneuvers began, but several bots were hit and either shot down or damaged.

"What in the slag! I thought these things were primitive!" Someone complained over his radio. Within the swarm, implanted DomIntel agents relayed what was happening back to Megatron. Almost instantly, Megatron ordered the Magical Battalion to be at the ready and told the other troops to hang back a bit more.

"It's some kind of magic!" A voice called back.

"Just blast 'em!" Megatron's voice came over the open frequency. "That stuff is coming from their own bodies. Tiny bodies like that won't have nearly enough fuel to keep that going for long!"

The regular guns some of the ponies had were categorically ignored. When it came to that, it was just another Decepticon military action that had the pinging of futile gunfire as its sound track.

As the Decepticon Military finally began to arrive, it didn't take long for the jeering to start. "Waa ha ha," came Carjack's laughter. "Get a load a' THAT - they have SPEARS!! Heh heh heheheh *snerf*" Then came Shockwave's seemingly-emotionless commentary. "According to my calculations, they have a 0.0000000001% chance of victory." Thundercracker put in his two bits: "Watch out for those pointy things. They might scratch a molecule's worth of our paint!"

"SWARM, SWARM THE ENTIRE PLANET! SEIZE THE POPULATION! TAKE EVERYTHING WORTH HAVING!" Megatron ordered everybody, yelling over the other voices chattering up the radio frequencies. Within moments, the non-Military Decepticons stopped concentrating on the few obvious military defenders and began spreading out, attacking everything that looked worth raiding along the way. This would force Equestria to either try to counter the attacks all over the planet, or concede the more-rural areas to the Decepticon raiders who accompanied the Military. MasterBlaster and SolarStorm saw a creepy, dark-eyed robot zip by with a group hauling several matte-black slave carts, several others with oil-raiding glider-tankers, and even a few with mining equipment.

Meanwhile, the Decepticon Military - with the Magical Battalion right behind Megatron - zeroed in on the ponies using magic to try to defend the planet. The enchanted armor, as planned, absorbed all of the magical attacks and made the energy available for the Decepticon troops to make magical attacks of their own. Soon, molten slag was appearing in the skies and pouring down towards the ponies, giant spurs teleported into existence and threw themselves at the ponies' sides, and, since not everyone is so creative, many plain old blasts came shooting down.

[Vallermoore]

Already the phalanxes of the Equestrians, meant for the battles of a thousand years ago, were breaking up under first blaster fire and then magical attacks such as molten metal and huge spurs and horse bridals. Two of the three batteries of Canterlot Castle were already in ruins and MasterBlaster swooped down on the third. Knowing how cannon fire worked meant he could dodge it and a single blast ignited the gunpowder and blew the battery up with a satisfying bang. SolarStorm, following his Coder, had very nearly been shot out of the sky...the cannon ball had grazed a wing and scratched a deep gash in the metal. He was still able to fly, but only just.

As the Decepticons spread out, there were far too few Royal Guards to put up much more then token resistance. Many of the ponies they met were unarmed and either surrendered on the spot, in which case they were put into cages, or tried to flee in which case their chances of being fired on were about 50/50. Dead ponies were of little value after all compared to live pony slaves. Canterlot Castle was blown up brick by brick, tower after tower collapsing to the ground. Central Equestria was unlikely to be able to carry on fighting for more then a day. The Crystal Empire had the advantage of snow, which the Decepticons thought of as "nasty frozen water" but it too did not have enough Royal Guards to carry on fighting for long.

Two areas did put up more of a fight. Griffonia was slightly more advanced, with three times as many cannons and even a single SAM battery, which took the Decepticons totally by surprise and blew up a few of them before they blew it up. Griffins were also a lot less likely to surrender, attacking with lances, talons, and primitive RPGs, even in some cases breaking their own eggs and killing their own chicks to spare them a life of mine slavery.

To the south the Badlands were changeling country, and Megatron had not yet rolled out a changeling proof upgrade. After initial failed attempts, at least one Hive found out where Decepticon love was stored, and drained it, weakening their targets and forcing some to mind transfer back to Cybertron before it was too late. One enterprising Changeling heard General Soundwave speak and started cheekily sending messages pretending to be him, fooling some Decepticons into going to the real General Soundwave. Others took the shape of Decepticons and used their magic to blast out of replica *blasters*. If they had been large enough to pass as full size Decepticons, they could have caused absolute chaos at least in the short term, as the real Decepticons would not know who was who and would not want to commit accidental treason. But they could not do that because they were pony size, and even their Queens were only alicorn size and could not get any bigger.

With the pony and zebra parts of Equestria almost fully subdued, half of Griffonia under occupation, and only the Badlands holding out...for now...the alicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle came forth to do battle. Celestia was dead, Luna was hiding somewhere trying to regain her tired out powers, and Cadence was in the Crystal Empire. Protected at least for now by her magical shield, the alicorn sliced two ordinary Decepticons in two with her magic, and then turned her attention on what seemed a dusty old bot, that unknown to her had armour as strong as a High General and almost as strong as Megatron. Even an alicorn blast would only pierce the outer layer of armour and cause some pain. Seeing this, every Decepticon ceased fire. Masher had a notoriously bad temper, especially in battle, and would want to deal personally with this pony that had dared to put a long scratch in his armour plate. And if any non-divine Decepticon had the weapons to take down an alicorn, it would be him. Nobody messed with Masher and got away with it. Even General Carjack generally stayed clear of direct conflict with Masher, although the two had a cold war going and tried to connive each other at every opportunity.

If Princess Twilight was killed, it was likely that the pony parts of Equestria that were still fighting would surrender as soon as the news reached them, although the Griffins and Changeling Hives would still fight on.

[Victorious Decepticons]

General Carjack was radioed about the resistance in "some land full of weird bird-horse things," and within a few minutes, he had arrived over Griffonia with his infamous Battalion fully expecting that there were some idiots there wanting to fight to the death. To the Decepticons' surprise, his radio message was not "destroy them all," but instead, "Gryphons, cool!" His pronunciation would have irked the griffons, for he said it GREYE-fons after having seen it spelled Gryphons in some game and learning it in that way before ever hearing it. "Hey, they're breaking their eggs! Stop them from doing that and jack those eggs!" His shocking command went out. Despite their reluctance, his troops swooped in and grabbed some eggs up, but the Genocide Battalion still was what it was. Any parents who tried to keep the eggs out of Decepticon hands were very efficiently dispatched.

"Now take a lot of samples of the fully-built ones for Biological Research," Carjack commanded. "As for any we don't need, I'm sure that Megatron will declare them redundant. So save your blaster power for later..." The Genocide Battalion knew what that meant. It was almost certain that, once a sampling of the species had been taken, they would get to live up to their name and simply exterminate the rest.

~~~~~~~~

Over in the Changelings' area, the attackers were left on their own to figure out what was going on with the love raiding and do something about it. Many were stymied, but a few had watched foreign media and knew what to look for. Soon, instructions were radioed out: They would need to make a temporary patch to turn off the generation of love. For a while, it looked like they were retreating, when in reality, they just wanted to get somewhere where they could tinker with their scripting without getting defeated in the process.

As this happened, a group of nine robots flew straight toward the center of the Changeling Kingdom, seemingly with no fear at all. They set down in one of the civilian areas, dropping their slave-catching carts right on top of some of the houses and smashing them flat in the process. A few changelings died under their feet...or so it seemed.

"Rise, rise and serve us," the group's leader intoned. While the changelings couldn't understand his Binary, they could still feel the creepy emptiness of the sounds. At his feet, the just-mangled changelings rose from their places...as zombies. "Kill any who resist," he ordered them, using the intent of his will to communicate.

Other changelings quickly tried to raid the group's love, only to find - to their dismay - that none in the group had any at all. In fact, they didn't seem to have any emotions at all, period! Yet, they did not behave like mindless automatons, either. It was clear that they were completely self-directed.

"HA-HA-HA-HA-HA" Came the emotionless taunt as the group's leader realized what the changelings were attempting. "You simply prove what I have always contended. A soul is a liability. Only those with souls generate the energy you seek. One day the other will realize that I was right all along. It is better to delete your soul. Then there is no limitation." Overseer's darkened eyes surveyed the area, and finally settled on one changeling who was standing in the street blatantly trying to raid harder. He reached over quickly and picked it up.

"Surrender to me," he yelled down at the rest of the neighborhood, "or face the fate of this fool." With that, he began to pull its legs off, joint by joint. Blood sprayed down on the street below as it squealed in agony. The group's leader - Overseer of Megatron Metals Mine #1 - felt absolutely nothing. He had but one drive, and that was to be the best at what he did - and what he was doing now was seeking new slaves for the most efficient mine in the Empire. His calculations had told him that a display of brutality was likely to bring about the most surrenders with the least amount of overall livestock damage, so brutality it was.

Attempting to raid love from the rest of his group didn't work either. They, like their commander, were soulless. In fact, the entire group was made up of robotic zombies. Overseer, however, had been soulless before he became an undead.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Several hundred miles away, raiders started reporting to General Soundwave thanks to the false commands that had been sent out by the changelings. Some also told him about the odd raids they had encountered over the Changeling Kingdom, and that a few had needed to mind-transfer away because of it.

"Oh really!" He said with only a bit of excitement. "Well. First of all, I didn't order anyone to report to me. It must have been an enemy fraud. We will implement one-use command codes immediately. Second...about these raids. I've heard that what they go after is, believe it or not, love. Since you're here, line up. Those things think they are good at imitations and forgeries? They won't consider themselves the masters after you install these programs..."

Soundwave began to program chips and hand them out. These chips would corrupt the love that went through them and turn it into its twisted sibling - greed. Those running the patches would still want Cybertron and the Decepticon Way, but not in the same way they did before. The end result of Soundwave's version, however, was close enough to the original that any changeling raiding it would be unlikely to realize the difference until it had already poisoned itself on the corrupted energy. "These patches will automatically deactivate once the battle ends," Soundwave noted as the people installed them.

As the installations were taking place, Soundwave radioed Megatron over the secret frequency and explained the situation. Megatron immediately put out a notice on all frequencies that one-use command codes were now in effect. A code would be broadcast before every legitimate order. Decepticons would be able to figure out the correct code based on Military Procedure #195d8 of the Basic Training Module. Others would be stymied unless they could properly guess the mathematical formula given in that Procedure.

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

While not *every* Decepticon stopped fighting to watch this battle, those who were in direct sight were certainly distracted and the ones closest to him did stop to take in the scene.

"Hey, heyyy," Masher protested as he felt some slight damage happen to his outer panel. "Who d'ya 'tink ya are~? Don't you know whose you blastin' at? I'm not some peasant!" He looked around and saw some little creature firing at him. "Hey, yer one-a doze types dat Megatron blasted in da Arena! Looks like it's my time fer fame!" As he said this, Twilight Sparkle saw that her blasts no longer did anything at all. In fact, his body seemed to be absorbing them.

"Da least I can do is let ya know who's about ta put ya in da zoo." He looked over at her. "I'm Masha. Head a da Inta'plana'tary Oil Procurement Corpa'ration. An' I'm da best raida on Cyba'tron. Here, I'll show ya." He proceeded to mentally command some of his internal modifications to attach pseudo-magical raid beams to Twilight Sparkle's energy, and immediately, the connection began to drain her power and use the energy to supercharge his system.

"Ya know dat deal Megatron does, where ya blast him and he gets stronga instead 'a breakin'? Yer lookin' at da inventa'." Masher's version, of course, wasn't actual magic. Instead, it was the sufficiently-advanced technology that most Decepticons preferred, and it was as good as anything the Bureau of Impossible Physics had put out. He had developed it and several related technologies near the end of the war against the C'tan, and had ended up using one energy-harvesting system to make himself a few trillion Cubes without having to fire a shot. Megatron, of course, would insist that he thought of the concept independently - and considering how every Decepticon seemed to be thinking up ways to raid at all times, it was likely true.

"Da t'ing is, I'm feelin' impatient today, so I ain't waitin' fer ya ta blast yer energy at me." He upped the draw, hoping to drain her completely and thereby kill her.

As this was going on, Masher realized that it was too quiet around him. "HEY, HEY," he yelled out with some obvious aggravation. "I ain't payin' you mercs to stand around here gawkin' at me playin' knacka! Now get ta raidin'! And rememba - get da METAL and da OIL!"

Immediately, the Corporation adjuncts stopped watching and resumed looting, filling up carts with everything that seemed to be of any value. The one thing they didn't take was slaves. Masher had figured that the amount of livestock coming in would glut the market and make a pony worth about a half a Cubelet, so he had ordered everyone to go after metal, oil, and even the masonry of the big castles before even thinking about slaves. To help cement his order, he had outfitted everyone with non-life-support glider-trailers.

~~~~~~~~~

Over in the snowy land, the Decepticons had no trouble flying but trying to land caused grief when the snow had a layer of ice under it. Many bots ended up skidding to and fro as the contacted the ground.

"Somebody BOMB THIS JUNK!!" Raid gangs began calling over the radio, and soon, General Skywarp's division arrived and ordered all of the others to get out of the way. His troops did indeed bomb that junk by releasing a blizzard of conventional explosives. Of course, this also had the effect of carpet-bombing the area, but it did melt all of the snow and ice on the ground just as requested.

[Vallermoore]

Equestria

As Princess Twilight Sparkle fell dead, Captain Shining Armour hoisted the white flag on the one flagpole still upright on the ruins of what was once the beautiful Canterlot Castle. That flagpole had been left alone deliberately as Decepticons knew that biologicals saw a white flag as a surrender sign. The few Royal Guards and other armed ponies dropped their weapons, hung their heads and meekly started to walk into the cages when they were set up for them. The Pegasui for the most part flew down and let themselves be caged, although a few preferred to flee or try and hide in clouds. It was now just a matter of hunting down as many ponies as possible from those few who did not surrender and preferred to hide. Many ponies fled into their one real wild area, the Evergreen Forest, a place they normally feared. Equestria, Zebrica, and the Buffalo areas were now Decepticon-ruled.

The IOPC did what they were told and took all the useful metal, rock and oil that they could lay their hands on. No Decepticon got in their way-although for the IOPC to blast other Decepticons during an active military campaign would bring Domintel down hard on them for committing treason, this would not apply after the campaign was over. Besides, there was plenty of stuff for other Decepticons to loot. Luna was found still trying to recover, had her crown removed and her horn snapped off, causing utter agony for her, and was presented to Megatron for him to deal with her as he saw fit. Of the pony tribes, only the Seaponies in the depths of the sea were pretty much out of reach, and they had no technology. Miles of cages were laid down for the prisoners and were soon filled with weeping and wailing earth ponies, pegasui and unicorns. More were constantly being added as Decepticons tore the roofs off houses and sent androids into caves and tunnels and sewer systems. Cadence was still free, for now, the one alicorn still alive and free, but her castle was being pulled apart like it was a toy.

Griffonia

The surviving griffins had retreated into the mountains, and the eggs that were not either broken or taken by the Genocide Battalion were piled up in the castle of the Griffin monarch, King Twistbeak. Twistbeak sent royal heralds out to ask the Decepticons what they wanted. Already all the cannon batteries and the one SAM battery had been exploded and the Griffin army was on the edge of defeat. Talons and hand-to-hand weapons were useless against Decepticons, and fireworks and primitive RPGs not much better.

The Badlands

In the area where Overseer had arrived, a third of the changelings just gave up on seeing a changeling being ripped apart. Overseer had no love to steal. Another third disguised themselves as things like rocks in the hope the Decepticons would go away, not knowing Overseer could see their body heat. The other third flew away as fast as their diaphanous wings could carry them.

In the rest of the Badlands, however, the changelings could so far congratulate themselves. Some Decepticons who entered thinking that there was nothing that could threaten them had been drained of what love they had, until they crashed or collapsed. Attempts to reengineer them and use them against their fellow Decepticons had not worked so far, although they were close to it in one case. Others had been faced by what seemed like an army of alicorns, who warned them in no uncertain terms that if they did not leave the Changeling Hives alone, they would never leave, as they would become stone statues. As most Decepticons did not yet know that there had only been four alicorns to begin with, many of them had indeed backed off-for now. Still more Decepticons had been tricked into thinking that General Soundwave had called them to his HQ and had left the area. Perhaps the Decepticons might leave the Changelings alone?

Soon enough they were back. The false *alicorns* were soon blasted, despite one ingenious attempt by other changelings to make themselves look like stone and slide over one Decepticon's feet to try and make him think he was turning to stone. Attempts to impersonate Decepticon generals no longer worked, as a code had been put in. And those changelings who tried to drain Decepticons found themselves poisoned to death instead as what they drained was deadly to them. They retreated to their Hives, only for the Decepticons to dig the Hives up as if they were anthills, revealing changelings, changeling children and grubs, and the cocoons which were the changelings own slaves/food sources. All but one of the Changeling Queens dressed themselves in their finery, and came out intent on surrender, with white flags being waved around them. Changeling resistance was collapsing by the hour.

The last Changeling Queen went into the body of a crashed Decepticon and started using her magic to in effect re-animate the empty shell, sitting in the cockpit. Perhaps she could fool Decepticons into thinking she was one? However, she knew not a bit of Binary. She took it off and flew over to the other Decepticons but...something did not seem right to them. The flying was sub-par, as if a pilot was at the controls-which it was. Of course, this might mean mind or motion boards that had been partly damaged.

*****
MasterBlaster radioed Vintage. "Vintage, how are you doing? How many ponies have fallen to your blasters?" He turned to SolarStorm. "You need to get that wing seen too, medics will be here soon, and if you tell them how young you are, one might agree to patch that wound up."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Griffonia

Carjack groaned to himself when the heralds came out. "Oh, great. Now I'm going to be stuck doing diplomatic stuff." He landed cautiously as several of his troops circled overhead with their blasters at the ready just in case the heralds decided to pull something.

"I am General Carjack, the head of the Genocide Battalion and a Division of Regulars," Carjack identified himself, firmly emphasizing the Battalion's name.

"We're invading this rock because some fancy pony decided it was a grand idea to try to suck planet Cybertron into a black hole. This happened after Leader Megatron bested one Princess Celestia in a duel to the death - a duel she had challenged him to." Carjack stated matter-of-factly after being asked what the Decepticons wanted. "Leader Megatron has decreed that in response to the black hole attack - that was sent against the all of Cybertron - all of planet Equestria is to become fully subjugated Decepticon territory and its surviving, non-redundant people put to work for Decepticon masters. Your interesting area is on Equestria and apparently was not at war with Canterlot. Your people have also stood and fought in great numbers, and this has caused your area to be deemed one that is likely to continue to try to cause great trouble even after its official army folds. For this reason, I in particular, along with my Battalion, have been sent to ensure that there will be no insurgency in this zone after we conquer it."

"I noticed that some of you were breaking your eggs, and I don't like to see upcoming offspring get terminated just because their parents can't imagine living under the Decepticons. I've also seen several of your kind commit suicide-by-Decepticon, by coming out to fight when there is no chance. These things are problematic, not just for the betrayed future offspring and those who are actually old enough to choose to die, but for ALL of you. When an area shows that it is staunchly rebellious, my Battalion gets called in to pacify it by destroying everyone remotely capable of insurgency."

"Right now I have saved enough eggs from their parents' horrible intentions to ensure that the Griffon Race will not go extinct. This means that I am free to handle the rest of you however I choose. Whether or not you surrender isn't really a big problem to me. If you do, and the people don't just end up revolting on their own, they'll be allowed to live as our slaves. If you don't, or the people continue to fight even after an official surrender, we exterminate all sapient life in this area. Either way, it will be Decepticon territory, for that is what has been ordered by the Leader."

Carjack's eyes glowed clearly as he anticipated a response that would allow him to give the order to kill them all. He imagined helpless, screaming creatures dying as they faced the mechanized efficiency of the Genocide Battalion as its members vied with each other for high scores - scores marked in the blood of the enemy.

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

Equestria

Megatron almost threw a rod when he learned via active troops in the area that Equestria had surrendered not to the Decepticon Military, but to MASHER! His mind immediately turned from the current war to the stability of his regime. Masher's adjuncts were certainly looting very efficiently, too. Would Masher use these events as a jumping point to make the move that both sides had considered? Perhaps it would be a good time to challenge the mob boss to multi-body duel to remind everyone who was the REAL Ultimate Decepticon...

He didn't think about this for long, though. Almost instantly, he flew from his position to the smashed-up castle and landed with an imposing bang. He was followed by his own elite division, which was large and strong enough to wipe out Masher's entire force within minutes.

"Glad to see that you have sense and have surrendered to MY nation," Megatron said to the ponies dejectedly walking to the cages. He surveyed the situation, and received a report that some were going into some spooky forest. "Blast it," Megatron muttered. "Biologicals and their forests! At least there doesn't seem to be as much forest here as on Earth. Once we're done with the main war, we can probably just bomb it flat..."

Right about then, he was presented with Luna and told that she was behind the black hole attack. He could see that she was in great pain, most likely due to the big bleeding stump on her head.

"So you're the one who attacked my whole planet!! How great of an idea do you think that was now?!" He said, grabbing the creature from the soldier. After a pause, he said, "Most leaders would want to make a big show of your execution. I, however, prefer not to allow known troublemakers to have any chance to get away." He summoned a soldier with a camera, and instantly, the scene went out over all of the holovision stations. Since most of the Decepticons were on or above Equestria now, they wouldn't see it live - but there would be plenty of reruns.

"Prepare for deactivation!" Megatron said loudly as he closed his fist to crush Luna into pulp.

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

The Badlands

When the Decepticons found the cocoons, it didn't take them long to realize that they held prisoners. This was a great find! Prisoners of conquered populations were generally very glad to see Decepticons, for to them, the Decepticons' arrival meant freedom. For now, the cocoons were put off to the sides of the hives - they could be opened up a bit later, when there would be time to really see what was within and deal with any who weren't so glad to exchange changelings for robots.

"White flags...the most beautiful kinds of fabric!" Various soldiers said as the queens came out to surrender.

"Hey, what's with that guy? He's flying like some kind of human-run piece of junk!" One said as he noticed the not-so-skilled fighter in the air. One radioed up in Binary, "Is something wrong with your boards?"

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

The sounds of metal clanging into a cart were heard in the background when Vintage turned on his communicator. "I'm doin' great! It's amazing how much stuff there is around here to loot! I've got 100 tons of steel, about 500 pounds of meat - it's pretty tasty once you cook it, by the way - and 1,000 new slaves. I'd say I blasted a good hundred of these things. They tried to hide in the sewers and stuff, but I know right where to look for fleeing biologicals. How's your raiding going?"

"Coder, did you forget what your SEDP said?" SolarStorm responded over the din of horse hooves and jet engines. "Repair bots don't come to civilians, and even for the troops, they don't land in the middle of a war. That's what the field repair kit is for! We need to go away from the active fighting so I can weld on some patches!"

[Vallermoore]

Griffonia

The heralds nodded. "We will fly back to King Twistbeak and see what he wants to do. Thank you for not shooting us on sight."

Soon enough, the Griffin King came out to talk to his people. "Many of us have fallen in battle-our SAMs, cannon batteries and most of our castles and fortresses have been destroyed. Many more have been maimed, and the Decepticons are clearly here to stay. Whilst we have blown up a few of them-the cannons were much more effective then I thought, they are here to stay, and if we carry on fighting they will exterminate every griffin of fighting age that they find. We can either give up and fly into the prisoner cages and accept that our freedom is at an end, or fight to the death. I for one hate the idea of slavery, but I will give every griffin who wants to surrender a two hour ceasefire so they can go to the cages and live on, if the Decepticons will do the same thing. It is up to you all what you want to do."

Griffin after griffin, many with their chicks, flew sadly to the nearest cages and walked inside, in their hundreds, then their tens of thousands, until only the hard core rebels remained around their monarch. A few of those who chose to fight on had harquebuses and primitive grenades and RPGs-most had only swords and other such hand to hand weapons. Of the Griffin Royal family, two princesses and a prince surrendered, two more princes and a princess, decided to stay and fight, and the last princess decided to hide in the royal castle's remains. Less then five hundred griffins remained- loyal royal guards, others who really feared slavery, or who had nothing much to lose having lost their families in battle. The royal griffins dressed in their full royal regalia, complete with golden, jewel encrusted crowns, and adopted a loose "horns of the buffalo" formation as the last minutes ticked down.

Dragon Hills

One place alone had so far stayed neutral and been left alone-the Dragon Hills. Dragons had fire capable of damaging Decepticons, but had stayed in their area, refusing to come and help either side, whilst their King had sent a message that if they were attacked, they would be fighting. Given that there were more then a thousand Decepticon-size dragons, it had been decided to leave them alone-for now. With the other places subdued, Megatron had to decide what to do with them. Whilst the dragons had not so far harmed a single Decepticon, they had not helped the Decepticons either.

The Badlands

The Queen answered back in English "I took a blast to two of my boards and can't even speak your language anymore." A suspicious Decepticon got close enough to look closely and radioed back to the others "It's disgusting! This Decepticon must have mind-transferred back to Cybertron to avoid total draining and death-and there is a Changeling Queen at the controls of his body! Sacrilege! Let's lay his body to rest, and kill the horrible thing inside of it." To have a dead Decepticon body being flown around in this way was as horrible to Decepticons as it would be for humans if a human dead body was possessed by an intelligent maggot.

On the ground, the Changeling Queens told a Decepticon that their crowns were chitin and to tear them off would cause death for them. The few changelings that were not dead or surrendered were just trying to hide now using their disguise ability.

Equestria

Unable to summon up more then a weak magical shield with almost all her horn destroyed, Princess Luna said "You killed my dear sister," before his hand cracked her shield and crushed her body to pulp, bringing her long life to an end.

Whilst going to Vintage's shop, MasterBlaster had brought a slave cage on the way, and he was very pleased to have done so, having put a lot of ponies inside it. "I have about eight hundred slaves, some gold coins and bars, some steel-about 50 tons of it, some pony meat, and I must have blasted three hundred ponies at least. Not bad. SolarStorm needs me."

He turned to SolarStorm. "Maybe when this is over I need a Debugging visit if I'm forgetting my SEDP! That could be the start of a serious mental problem if it's not fixed quickly. The fighting is pretty much at an end here, but you're right, let's go somewhere totally safe so you can fix that nasty wing wound. Cannons are so slow that if you're not careful, you dodge and then go straight back into the line of fire and get hit."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Equestria


"She shouldn't have challenged me to a duel if she wanted to live!" Megatron said, once again struck by the immense lack of logic that biologicals had. "I would've been content to have that one little nark to reverse-engineer. But noooo, she had to try to save that worthless git! Of course, when I found out how weak this place was, all bets were off, just the same." Megatron admitted. "But trying to destroy all of Cybertron just because you couldn't handle the natural result of your sister's stupid move - ridiculous!" With that, he closed his hand, enjoying the crackling feel of the failed shield just before he felt the distinctively not-so-enjoyable feel of wet, smelly biological guts.

"Ech." Megatron said openly as he got a rag out of a panel with his left hand. He dropped the squeezed-out carcass on the ground and wiped the gore off of his right hand the best he could. Soldiers made sure to transmit images of the scene in front of the slave cages. It always made things go easier when the losers of an invasion knew that their old leaders were gone for good.

~~~~~~~~~~

SolarStorm and MasterBlaster found a calm-looking area near the forest, and the younger Decepticon began to weld squares of "patch metal" over the hole in his wing. He was clearly using the mechanics module of his SEDP to automate the work - the way he went about it was very professional; too professional for someone with his limited level of experience to be doing entirely of his own conscious will. The expression on his face proved that his body was running this repair sequence on automatic. He watched with fascination rather than the concentration someone uses when actively working on a project.

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

Not long after, Megatron's voice came over the open frequencies complete with the code to prove it was him. "Attention everyone! If you have slaves, do NOT take them to Earth! Repeat: Do NOT take them to Earth. Bring them to the main collection point near Canterlot Castle, or what's left of it, for sale. Troops will be coming with the payment money. Most of the slaves will be deployed right here, so there is no point in transporting them to and from yet another planet."

All of the veterans of the Decepticon-Earth War knew what Megatron was planning. After that war, the humans weren't sent elsewhere to work. Instead, they were put to labor right there on their own planet, and only the inanimate resources were taken elsewhere. The same fate surely awaited most of those conquered today, though a few would likely be taken to Earth to help with the mining there. Such interplanetary relocations, however, would only take place en masse after Biological Research cross-checked for new diseases and made sure that all of the stock was properly patched to prevent cross-contamination and the plagues such a thing could bring. Biological Research and Megatron knew well of Earth's own history, where people from as close as another continent carried diseases that they were immune to but the new place wasn't.

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

Griffonia

General Carjack and his battalion were surprised, and secretly dismayed, that so few decided to fight on. Even so, it was soon noted that a regiment of griffons were trying to encircle them. Carjack didn't know the name of the formation, or at least not the one they used, but he did spot the intention. He ordered his troops to face outwards in preparation for the Command.

Finally, the time was up, and not one second later, the Command went out: "KILL THEM AALLL!" General Carjack yelled out while simultaneously opening fire on the relatively small biologicals. Blasters began blazing at the troops near them, and since most of the area's weapons had already been deactivated, it wasn't long before that part of the fighting was over. A few Decepticons suffered a bit of damage from the remaining RPGs, but the griffons soon learned what every other army with that type of weaponry learned: Limited ordnance of any sort loses to seemingly-unlimited amounts of powerful energy-blaster fire.

Near the end, several Genociders got down on their bellies and began to sweep their blaster across the ground, leveling huge swaths of ruins and vaporizing anyone left within. The castle ruins, however, were made of a bit stronger stuff than the houses, so the final princess remained alive for now.

Carjack started walking around, holding his hands out from his sides with palms down. He was scanning for life, and he was quite good at it when there were no plants left to generate interfering frequencies. Soon enough, he noticed a heat signature in the castle. "Way-hey! What have we here? I think I smell a COWARD!" He called out. Soon, he dug into the castle and pulled out one final griffon.

"Congratulations!" He said to her with only a bit of mockery in his voice. "You win...a code cracking! You're the perfect type for use as a basis for slave stock. You want to stay in your area and do the right thing, but you're not brave enough to fight. It won't take much to convert your code into beings that will stay in their mines, keep working, and not try to revolt on us!!" Carjack didn't know her rank, nor did he care. It was the creature's displayed personality traits, not its lineage, that was important to the genetic engineers who would be examining it.

Carjack quickly put a band of fabric around its neck and tied it tight. "Now don't take that off," he warned, "or else you'll end up in the mines." Despite having warned the creature, he also put it in a separate cage just in case it was stupid and decided not to listen. He hoped it would listen, though, since an obedient location-connected coward was worth far more to the Biological Research Division.

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

Later, Megatron got word that there was another area of the planet - one that hadn't been conquered. Soon, he arrived at Dragon Hills to speak to the king. A herald came out to meet him.

"Tell your king that I have a simple proposition: Your small population will be left alone as long as he is willing to do three things for me: First, a tribute of 1 million barrels of oil per year, or equivalent other resources if you have no oil, must be paid to Victorious Decepticons. Second, your people will not enter our areas - which are the entire rest of the planet - without our permission. Third, you are very interesting biologicals, so I insist that you make at least two of your kind available for interviewing, DNA sampling, and some non-lethal testing of strength and such."

Megatron was actually taken aback by these creatures, which were as big as he was and apparently of one of the species that humans had thought were mythological. "I would also like to know if your species has ever been to our Earth," Megatron added.

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

The Badlands

As soon as the changeling pilot responded that she didn't know "your" language, everyone knew that it was not a Decepticon in control of that body. A Decepticon wouldn't refer to his own language as "yours," but instead, as his own. Plus, a Decepticon who was so damaged as to not be able to process Binary would, quite simply, die on the spot. The language wasn't just for talking, but also to run all of the unconscious aspects of the system. A robot that couldn't process Binary would be like a biological that couldn't use neurotransmitters.

Confirmation came quickly, but by then, the bots who took a closer look were actually in the way of what was to come and ended up prolonging the changeling's life for a moment. Soon enough, they peeled off and left plenty of room. Once they were clear, blasts came at the piloted corpse from all angles. Though it took a while to bring the fighter down, heat buildup in the cabin began to cook the changeling far sooner. Even though she tried her best to fly away, every Decepticon that saw the plane now opened fire on it, and soon enough, it went careening to the ground. Flying Decepticons made sure that if the Queen was uncooked enough to try to escape, she would be instantly blasted to oblivion.

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

On the ground, the revelation about the crowns of the Queens tempted many Decepticons to try to yank them off to see if that was really true, but they restrained themselves in case it was factual and Megatron wanted to interrogate them.

It seemed, at first glance, that the war in this area was over. Soon, however, some began to notice heat signatures coming from rocks, trees, and even debris. "Do we radio Soundwave or Carjack?" some asked. "Let's radio Soundwave," others said. "Carjack's good at blanking out life from an area, but Soundwave's good at spotting things that aren't supposed to be alive but really are. Of course, we can play skipping stones in the meantime..." One of them picked up a changeling-rock and heaved it hard across the sand, hoping to skip it over some dunes like a human would skip a stone over water. Its true nature was quickly revealed as it transformed into a bird-like thing just before impact and soared upwards, only to be met by blaster fire from the ground.

The call did go out to Soundwave, and when he arrived, he was greeted by the sight of Decepticon regulars and a few raiders throwing "rocks" up and shooting at them. The robots seemed to be having great fun while simultaneously looking like a bunch of barbarians. Soon, he ordered them to stop - their antics were creating thousands of interfering heat signatures and energy streaks that were jamming his scan. When he scanned, he saw that the battle in this area was far from over. Seemingly every rock, twig, tree, and brick in the area lit up with either heat or CO2 emissions.

"Take all of the surrendered ones away to the collection center at Canterlot," Soundwave ordered. "We'll take care of the mopping-up."

The other soldiers did as they were told, and took the specially-made cages - with holes too tiny to escape from by transforming into other things - off to the main collection area. Soon after, Soundwave gave the order, and 100 of his own troops arrived with bombs. The bombs were dropped all over the immediate zone, and would vaporize or at least blow apart anything biological that remained in the area. Soundwave himself was unbothered by the barrage, which was intentionally made to have less power than what it would take to blow up a Decepticon.

~~~~~~~~~~~

It would take a while for the Decepticons to find all of the mining areas on Equestria and assign the slaves to various ones. For now, all of the captives were being collected near the place Canterlot Castle once stood. This location was chosen for two reasons: One, its location was convenient, and two, putting the captives in sight of its ruins would bring home the point that the old government really was no more.

The slaves would likely be seeing this scene for a month or more, and for that time, they would be living in their cells. This made it so - at least for a short time - the Decepticons would actually have to take care of them. Soldiers would not be doing this work. Instead, slum-dwellers would be hired for such a menial thing. These slum-dwellers would be of the lowest non-violent class - the ones who weren't any good at raiding or conniving, but who weren't bright enough to get a job in one of the sciences. For them, the lowly position of "slave feeder and waste remover" could be the very thing that would allow them to buy the parts they needed to keep functioning until their next military stints.

One of the soldiers currently guarding the area looked up at the noonday sun - the noonday sun that had been in the same place since they'd arrived. "Get a load of that!" He said. "It looks like that line about the ponies moving the sun was true!"

Another looked up. "Hey, it IS in the same spot it's been in for hours!! What kind of inefficient system is THAT! The Bureau of Impossible Physics is gonna 'love' fixing that..." It didn't strike the Decepticons as strange to think of the current situation as needing fixing. Planets were supposed to move around suns, and moons around planets - ON THEIR OWN! Surely the Bureau would figure out how to get everything spinning so that no more intervention would be required. Until it did, Equestria would have a dark side...

[Vallermoore]

Dragon Hills

Almost all of the dragons were anything but happy at that. "Give you all our treasure hoards and stay in this area eternally? We are similar in some ways to you-we too are raiders. We refuse your terms." One of the dragons breathed blazing fire in one of the average Decepticon's face-and it was enough to cause damage and make everything kick off. The battle that followed was not all that long, as dragon-skin on all but the armoured belly was surprisingly frail when it met blaster fire. And if a blast did pierce the belly, it ignited the gasses inside. It was not all one sided though. Whilst Megatron as a god could withstand bites and the hottest dragon fire without damage, several lesser Decepticons were less lucky. The dragons soon learned the hard way how hard Decepticon Steel was, but some unlucky or overconfident Decepticons suffered nerve damage from their sensors being cooked or even internal damage or seized-up limbs. They would need new body parts, but as they were members of the Military on active duty that would be paid for by the Decepticon Empire. Free healthcare for soldiers on active duty made good common sense, as it made them not mind getting injured as much. Only two or three Decepticons were *killed* outright and of course they would live on in the Military Save vault, as the dragons had no jammers. Only a couple of quaking, shivering adult dragons were left alive now, but there were dragon eggs and small dragon children to be found in caves if the Decepticons wanted to look for them, as well as the treasure hoards of gold and silver and jewels.

Reports were coming in now that all the regions on both sides of the planet were more or less pacified. From the north to the south only a few griffins and ponies and changelings were alive and free, hiding in forests and other such wild places. One was Princess Cadence, the last ruler on the planet to still be alive and free.

Equestria

MasterBlaster watched over his offspring with care whilst he patched up his wounds, just in case of an attack by some suicidal unicorn or pegasui. Earth ponies could only make dents at most. Soon SolarStorm was patched up. He would need a new wing once back on Cybertron though. "Let's go and sell the 800+ pony slaves that I was able to round up." Inside his cage the ponies had all manner of cutie marks and they cried and moaned and begged for their freedom. On seeing a human there near his cage with a camera, MasterBlaster was surprised. "Which country are you from? Don't you know this is a warzone and I could just scoop you up and enslave you? Who are you? Were you trying to set free my slaves?" He lightly picked up the human but didn't hurt him. Yet.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Dragon Hills
Megatron was taken aback by the refusal, especially when the dragons accused him of wanting "all of" their treasure hoards. Was their total treasure so minimal that they couldn't afford the equivalent of a million barrels of oil a year without going broke? Also, he didn't say that the couldn't ever leave their area - just that they would need permission to do so. This was, in his view, a reasonable demand that would simply ensure that he didn't end up with a dragon-led revolution in the face without any warning. But before he had a chance to argue, someone on the dragon side had opened fire in a very literal way, and the war was on.

The Decepticons spared no effort in their fight and fully intended to just wipe out this small population and be done with them. This desire was intensified by the power of the dragons' resistance, which actually managed to deactivate a few of the robots! Finally, though, there were just a couple of terrorized adults left along with some really small children and eggs. Megatron decided to make it a clean sweep when it came to the grown-ups. He raised his fusion cannon and quickly dispatched the last of the adults.

"We've eradicated all of these things that were remotely big enough to fight," Megatron told the nearby troops, "but we didn't see any young ones. They have to be around here somewhere. Find and capture all of the dragons that are still too young to be considered sapient, and if this is an egg-using species, get the eggs too. Any that are old enough to talk are too old. Delete them, or they'll grow up and try to 'avenge' these losers. Only keep babies that are so young that they'll never remember a non-Decepticon world."

Megatron prepared to take off, but stopped and added, "Oh, and find those treasure hoards they were so damned concerned about!"

Soon, Megatron was in the air, but before the other Decepticons could fill their panels with loot, General Thundercracker showed up to oversee the operation. They would still be allowed to take whatever loot they could carry (with the government getting the rest), but Thundercracker would make sure that the other orders - to find and keep the very young dragons and the eggs - would also be followed.

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

With Equestria essentially pacified except for the underwater parts of the oceans, there wasn't much left to do on land. Megatron flew to Canterlot and walked up and down the lines of cages, taking careful note of the condition of the livestock and the way it was behaving. Suddenly, though, he overheard some whispers.

"Princess Cadence is still out there..."
"I hope she's alive!"
"The TVs didn't show her get killed!"
"Maybe she will save us!"

Megatron stopped cold and immediately radioed for Soundwave to come on the double. Soon, the spymaster was there.

"There's still a competing ruler alive," Megatron explained. "I need you and ForIntel to find her and bring her down. If she's still too strong when you find her, radio me right away! And have the cameras ready for the battle. These meat sacks have to see the end of ALL of their former rulers!"

Soundwave gave a "yes sir" and immediately set to work. His first move wasn't to send millions of troops all over a planet to look for one puny pony who was probably hidden in some cave somewhere. Instead, he used a highly-encrypted frequency, accessed over his internal radio so he couldn't be overheard, to contact ForIntel on Cybertron. He then ordered someone to go to Farm World 5 and talk to the Changeling Queen there. She had said that she had embedded spies in several places. Perhaps, one of them would know the likely whereabouts of this 'Princess Cadence' person. This would be especially easy if there was a bunker somewhere that the Equestrian royalty was known to have, but if not, a good spy would still be able to guess likely locations just by knowing the habits and preferences of the quarry.

Megatron continued to walk the rows of tightly-packed cages, which stretched for miles on end and were stacked several cages high. There had to be billions of ponies and various pony-like species crammed into this relatively small area, and more were being flown in by the hour. Despite the massive planet-wide victory, he did not yet look happy. Inside, he was working out how to get these creatures into less-cramped quarters as fast as possible without letting any escape or accidentally seeding a revolution against his own government. He had learned on Earth that keeping biologicals in conditions like this, especially out in the open, led to massive amounts of stock loss due to disease, overall physical stress, unequal distribution of water, and weather exposure. This situation had to be improved, and fast - yet he couldn't just open the doors, at least not yet.

One thing he did do was order that no more captives be brought to this immediate area. Other captives were to be brought to various fields instead - still in cages, of course. That way, if disease did break out or a natural disaster happened, he wouldn't lose all of the livestock.

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

The human was speechless as he was held by the giant robot, and tried to appear too afraid to talk, but MasterBlaster's sensors picked up a steady heart rate and normal body temperature. Clearly this was some sort of spy or other agent, but from where? It didn't yet say...

[Vallermoore]

Dragon Hills

The area was now full of the dead and smoking corpses of the dragons, and it was easy to search their caves. The occasional adult or teen dragon was found and despatched without too much trouble, although they tried to be more fearsome then they really were, by using shadows and channelling their voices through the tunnels. Often what seemed to be the shadow of an adult dragon was a teen one projecting a huge shadow. More then one Decepticon needed to turn Bravery Up up by a notch or two. They found large hoards of gold and silver and jewels. In Equestria these would have been worth a great deal of money. In Cybertron they were worth some Energon, but not as much as other things. Gold was mainly used for the Decepticon cables that served as their nerves. Silver tarnished, so it was mainly for vain Decepticons who wanted a silver inlay on their armour and around their Decepticon Seals. Jewels before the discovery of magic were rarely used on Cybertron at all, as a blaster could crack even a diamond, so no sensible Decepticon wore a body encrusted with jewels as it weakened the armour. Now, however, there was a use for them. Eggs and tiny baby dragons the size of humans were found, and these were gathered up with care, with General Thundercracker looking on. Given the chance most Decepticons would just prefer to fill their panels with loot, but none wanted to get on the wrong side of a High General.

Farm World 5

"We have a spy within the Princess's closest entourage, Lord Blueblood. The Hive Mind can contact him even from here. If you wait a couple of minutes..." The Changeling Queen's eyes went green and opaque for a short time and then back to normal. "She is hiding in the Crystal Caverns under her palace. When you find them Blueblood will take changeling form-please don't blast or harm him, or our agents will be scared to help you." And she gave the exact co-ordinates of Princess Cadence's hiding place. Soon this would be radioed back to Cybertron and then on to General Soundwave. The Changeling Queen had for the first time proved her use to the Empire.

Changeling Kingdom

As the prisoners were set free from the cocoons, the vast majority were very happy to be free. They would have been much less happy if they had known that most were likely to end up as mine slaves unless they had something of value to offer in return for staying free. Many kissed Decepticon feet. Soon enough they asked the Decepticons why they were there.

Equestria

MasterBlaster said "You're a changeling, aren't you? If you change I will let you go free. My slave cage is not designed for changelings-you would just escape and might let 800 head go with you. And I doubt you are any danger to me-you do want to stay alive after all." He took the camera and the human changed into a changeling and was allowed to fly away minus the camera, which MasterBlaster put into a panel. Cameras had value. He explained to SolarStorm "If I put him in the slave cage he would bust out, changelings are hard to hold prisoner, and I don't want blood and guts all over my hand." They went to where the slaves were being sold.

Not far away, Stomper discovered ElectronBlitz by chance, but knew that as long as the campaign had not been formally closed by Megatron, ElectronBlitz was protected by Decepticon law. After all, Decepticons having to watch out for attacks from other Decepticons would not be very effective soldiers or raiders. Once the campaign was closed it would be very different, and he could reduce ElectronBlitz to pieces of scrap metal.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Dragon Hills
The regular troops were amazed at the super-tiny size of the newly-hatched dragons when they were told that these were of the same species as the big ones! They had to be very careful not to break them or the eggs as they transferred the lot outside. Once there, big slave cages were outfitted with a variety of softer materials and the babies and eggs were put inside. They wouldn't be able to fly the cages anywhere until more work was done because the passengers would fall right through the big gaps between the bars, which were sized to hold adult ponies. A few noted that it was good that they weren't expected to try to cram adult dragons in those cages.

When the looters made it to the vaunted treasure hoardes, a few groans could be heard through the tunnels.
All that was in there was gold, silver, and mostly-useless rocks! Even Decepticon cables weren't usually made of gold, but instead, copper and copper alloys. Only a few bothered to "go for the gold" since under normal operating conditions, the differences in performance weren't all that great. Some also used it to add award stripes or other markings to their bodies, but only for decoration - and on Cybertron, something used mostly for decoration was cheaper than something that gave the user a quantifiable advantage. It was far different from Earth, where baubles were often more expensive than practical equipment.

Silver was actually considered very usefulfor the electronic aspects of Decepticon bodies, and was often a component of solder, batteries, some types of switches, and myriad other things. Alas, it was also decently common on Decepticon mining worlds, and the lack of shortage made it quite cheap.

The gems, with the exception of diamonds and those that could be used in high-powered laser weaponry, were of very little value within the Empire. Even the "valuable" ones didn't gain nearly the value they would have on a gem-loving world thanks to the existence of advanced industrial fabrication methods.

Despite the low value of the loot within the Decepticon lands, everyone was quite happy to jam as much as possible into their panels. What was worth 1 Cube on Cybertron could be worth $1,000,000 in some other nation, and everyone had visions of international trade dancing in their heads when they saw these treasures.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Changeling Kingdom

The Decepticons eagerly explained the story of Megatron's duel with Celestia, his disdain for how she had weakened the Nation, and Luna's attempted destruction of Cybertron. They left out how Megatron had originally said that he had intended to invade Equestria just for being disgustingly weak, and instead framed the invasion as both an act of well-justified retribution and a necessary step to prevent further planet-wide threats from the alicorns.

Whether these freed captives would become slaves was not yet a settled thing. In many cases, the freed captives of target nations were either eager to become Decepticons themselves or at least loyal enough to qualify for better positions than "mine slave." Of course, all conquered biologicals were officially classed as slaves from a legal standpoint, but those who were glad to see the Decepticons were in a good position to end up in far better circumstances than their dejected and defeated species-mates. These captives would at least be interviewed by agents from ForIntel and DomIntel before being taken elsewhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, Leader Megatron got the message and arrived at the palace along with some Constructicon-like guys who had FTL'd over from Cybertron. He managed to look both glad and irked at the same time - he was glad to have gotten the location of the rogue princess so quickly, but he was irked that he couldn't just drop a few bunker busters on the place and be done with it! Alas, there was a Changeling spy in there with the princess, so they would have to dig, and do so fairly carefully. This would give Cadence a chance to get ready and start blasting...it was so unstrategic! Still, a force of spies that already had embedded agents had come in handy in less than a week.

"Start digging!" He ordered dramatically, and then stood back - with an energy-absorbing force field already in place and his fusion cannon at the ready. Immediately, his demolition crew transformed into specialized digging equipment and were jamming titanium-edged power shovels into the ground and through the concrete of the part of the catacombs below. They would do this until they found the room the princess was hiding in or until she chickened out and tried to fly out of some secret exit. Decepticons circled above, watching carefully for anyone who appeared from any hidden holes in the ground.

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

Equestria

"HEY!" Stomper yelled out. "You're that brat who tried to use me as a tool to kill your enemy!!" The mob scion was now in a different, less-built-up, body than he had before since his duel was over. His voice, however, was the same. ElectronBlitz turned quickly and showed a shocked look, but he didn't have a chance to say anything. A blast immediately caught him in the mouth as Stomper continued to yell. "First let's wipe that smile you had right off your face!" He said as ElectronBlitz' silicon lips melted and revealed the Energon intake valve behind them. "Now let's teach you not to try to manipulate people into doing your wars for you! Now you will see that a REAL fighter handles his OWN business!" Stomper opened fire with great gusto, fully intending to eradicate ElectronBlitz on the spot. Like any hostile being of such a young age, he gave far more importance to his impulses than the law.

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

"What was with the camera?" SolarStorm asked. "Strange that a changeling would bother to walk right up to us with one and take pictures! I wonder what else is on it?"

For a moment, SolarStorm wondered if his Coder would realize he was sapient because he hadn't gone along with the order to wait for a "medic" to show up, whatever that was. If he wasn't sapient, he would have had to say okay. He supposed it was fine for MasterBlaster to realize it now, but still didn't outright say he was running with a high level of self-direction in part because he wanted to see if his Coder would catch it.

Once at the slave-trading area, they were told that ponies were going for 500 Cubes each just like humans - not because ponies were believed to be worth that much, but because everyone who captured any had been helping the Decepticon Nation with the invasion. Other species were being paid for according to various factors including rarity and how difficult it was to capture them. Griffons were going for 700 Cubes, and changelings for 600.

Meat was only worth 10 Cubes per 100 pounds, and was to be frozen down with liquid nitrogen for storage, packed in contamination-proof containers, and then taken to Carjack Agriculture on Earth for sale. Those who didn't want to bother to make the trip could sell it for biological rendering once the temporary rendering facilities were set up. If it was to go to Rendering, it would not need any refrigeration since even spoiled meat would turn into biofuel and fertilizer just fine. Rendered meat, however, was only worth 1 Cube for each 100 pounds.

[Vallermoore]

Equestria

Taken by surprise, and up against one of the strongest Decepticon bodies that belonged to someone else, ElectronBlitz was only able to get two or three blasts off in return before attempting to mind transfer back to Cybertron. If Stomper had his jammer turned on, he would not be making it back there and would be vanishing into the ether instead.A plain clothes Domintel agent noticed this act of treason, silently recorded it with secret recording technology and sent the information up to his superior. Under any other circumstances what Stomper had done would be perfectly legal, as long as it was not Megatron or a High General that he was blasting. But on campaign blasting another Decepticon who was in control of his own body was banned. There was a good reason for this-the Decepticon who blasted another Decepticon on campaign was helping the Decepticon's foes, and Megatron had not yet formally declared the campaign over.

There were three cases where otherwise accepted and encouraged corruption was treason, two of which did not apply here. The first was when fixing the great planetary panels of the Metal Planet. This was brought in after Leader Megatron fell through the street and had to fire his jets to prevent serious injury. The second was for a Debugger to enslave or otherwise harm his patients, otherwise no bots would dare debug and insanity would become common, and unless controlled by an enslavement virus, an insane Decepticon was a randomly dangerous Decepticon because of his blasters. Danger was thought to be a good thing on Cybertron, but not random danger because of insanity. The third case that did apply here was if a Domintel agent deliberately ignored treason. It was at least a possibility that Stomper, the son of Masher, might get an execution squad sent after him for committing treason.

One of the IOPC who saw Stomper commit treason covertly radioed Masher on a connection that was only to be used, Masher had made crystal clear, in the most dire of emergencies. "Boss, sorry to disturb you, but Stomper just blasted another bot when this campaign has not formally ended yet. If Domintel has seen this, your son could be facing a treason investigation. If I did not tell you about this, and your son ended up facing an execution squad, you would never forgive me." Surely Masher could now make sure his son that he had spent a long time making would not be punished.

*****
"I will look when I got back to Cybertron. Are you...are you fully sapient? If you are, then Happy Sapience Day! And when we get back I'll need to give you your own safe with plenty of Energon, and at least one Sapience Day present."

MasterBlaster had just one griffin-griffins were rare in the area he was in, and no changelings, but he did have plenty of ponies, some meat, some gold and some metal to sell. He wanted to eat some of the meat himself.

*****
Crystal Empire

By deliberately not digging at one area, they flushed the small royal party out. First came Blueblood, who took changeling form and flew up into the sky. Then came Princess Cadence, who at once used ninety percent of her power to put a very strong shield around her body-and was picked up shield and all by a nearby Decepticon. Whilst the Decepticon could not crush the shield, at least with just his metal hands, Cadence dared not weaken it to use other magic. He passed her to Megatron. Cadence shuddered as she looked at Megatron's glowing red eyes. "What happened to Celestia and Luna and Twilight?" she demanded.

Changling Kingdom

There were two amongst those rescued from the changelings who were certainly different from the rest. One was a unicorn whose symbol was a dagger cutting a pony throat, a symbol that this pony was a thuggish one and a robber and raider. He looked up at one of the huge war robots and said "It must be amazing being one of you. I'd join you if I could but I doubt it is possible, and even if it was, I'm sure there are massively strict tests to weed out spies, rebels and those who just don't have it in them to live your life according to your way."

The other was a young colt who squealed with joy when he suddenly got his cutie mark...a small heart with a Decepticon Seal above it. "I just got my cutie mark, and it's...it's a symbol of loyalty to you. Without you bots I would have hung until death in a Changeling cocoon. I must be almost unimaginably weak to you, but...I owe you for setting me free. Even though you might have set me free just to take me prisoner again...I will always stay loyal to your Decepticon Nation. That is clearly far, far stronger then Equestria or it would not have been able to occupy it. Celestia did nothing and left me to die here, but you got me out."

[Victorious Decepticons]

(OOC: Sorry for the delay.)
IC:

Crystal Empire

Leader Megatron looked down at the shuddering alicorn who was trying to sound bold and demanding despite that shuddering and gave her a cruel grin. "Celestia is where everyone who duels me to the death goes - the afterlife!" He announced proudly. "Luna tried to attack my entire planet out of sour grapes for Celestia's loss, so obviously, she is now with her sister." Megatron's eyes grew a bit dimmer at that; he was still angered that someone would attack Cybertron over the results of a duel that Celestia had willingly challenged him for.

"As for the other one, she made the mistake of attempting to fight Masher of the Interplanetary Oil Procurement Corporation. So he drained her of all of her energy, and as you might expect, her body's engine doesn't run any better without energy than ours do."

"That leaves you. The final major figure on this planet. And, if you have the brains that a ruler should have, you know that it is not good to leave ex-rulers around when taking over an area." Cadance could hear Megatron's engine begin to produce a menacing, low rev, but she might not have realized that this was happening because his body was responding to his psychological state - a state that was telling it to get ready to do violence.

"I can't imagine how you weak things ever got in control of an entire planet!" Megatron said with disgust. "A whole planet of cute, little, WEAK-MINDED, COWARDLY, beings! Under my dominion they may stay cute and little, but they will not be as WEAK even working as slaves!" Each time he said the word 'weak,' it was with the sort of disgust that accompanies the desire to spit. "They will become brave and not afraid of violence; true loyalists to the Empire and not worthless, craven rejects! Alas, by then, they will also be MY loyalists, and the Empire they will be loyal to will be the Decepticon one!"

"But first, there is one last thing to do. The saying is 'OUT WITH THE OLD and in with the new' - and YOU'RE the old!" With that, he called for a reinforced cage and then threw her and her shield into it, locking the door behind her. Once in the cage, it seemed that she would be a sitting duck for the same type of blasting that had taken out Celestia. He set the cage on the ground and readied his fusion cannon for a few good blasts.

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

Equestria

Masher was surprisingly undisturbed by the news of his offspring's action. He knew that even DomIntel recognized that youngsters were more impulsive than adults, and at this age, most weren't fully sapient. This would make the agency unlikely to go straight for the death penalty, and instead, aim to deliver a lesser punishment. He did radio his contact at DomIntel Headquarters, but only asked to be informed if, for some reason, an execution did end up in the plans.

Stomper would be learning a lot about DomIntel in the next several days, but not just what the agency intended to teach him. This was a good opportunity for Masher to impart the knowledge he wanted to teach, such as how to appear contrite when you don't mean it at all, how to spot a softie in a soldier group, and how to tell which agents will be open to a bribe! While all of this was in the secret Standard Corporation Operating Manual - installed right after leaving Debugging with the official educational pack - there was nothing like live practice.

~~~~~~~~~

ElectronBlitz' Coder would never know what happened to his offspring, who had been just a mile away as he looted some metal fabrication company. When he found the body, it was blasted to smithereens by an amount of force he'd expect to have come from an active soldier. Radioing home to Cybertron yielded no response.

Off in the distance, Stomper grinned. He hadn't thought of activating his jammer, but his Coder had thought of everything. His augmented fighting instincts were pre-programmed to activate the jamming if his personal hatred for a target was over 75%, which it was. While most Decepticons felt a love of the Decepticon Way as their sapience budded, Stomper's fuel pump swelled with pride and appreciation for the Corporation and all of the advantages being in it provided. One day, we will run all of Cybertron, Stomper thought. To him, it was an innocent goal, or at least, as innocent as anything else that came out of the IOPC. Clearly he and the rest of the Corporation were the strong, and the strong are the ones who rule, even the SEDP said that.

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

"I've actually been sapient for a while now," SolarStorm admitted. "But I didn't say so because I was worried after ending up in that puny body." Soon, his face brightened. "But I'll take those presents now, and the ones you had mentioned back then, too!" He may have been sapient, but he was certainly still a kid, with the attention span and impulsiveness to match.

Later, they arrived at a slave collection place with their overloaded slave cage. There, a large amount of built-up guards stood watch over a big pile of Energon Cubes. When someone brought slaves in, the captives would be transferred to one of the cages the government had brought. This left room to put the Energon into the original transport cage, and soon, MasterBlaster and SolarStorm's cart was filled with money instead of ponies. They would need to take the money to the vaults right away or at least hide it thanks to the still highly-charged atmosphere of the operations on Equestria. If they tried flying around with it like they could on Cybertron, they would surely be raided, treason or not. Plus, a cart full of Cubes left no more room to put new slaves anyway.

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

Changeling Kingdom

The soldiers were very pleased to have one attempt to join and to have another who was so blatantly loyal that it showed on his flank! Alas, they knew little about the immigration process, having been built on Cybertron and not having had any prior interest in foreigners.

"We'll have to wait for ForIntel and DomIntel to interview you, but with that kind of loyalty, you're unlikely to end up in the mines - at least, not unless you want to be overseers," one of the troops assured the two. "I'm not sure what it takes to immigrate, though. I just know that it's possible - and that it isn't easy. Oh, and that it requires being made into a real Decepticon!"

Another noted the younger pony's new mark, and said, "so those appear there just like that! They're not tattoo-like! That's pretty amazing!" He stared like one does when looking at a fascinating new animal.

"As for the rest of you," the first soldier said, "you'll all be interviewed by Intel, too. Freed captives always get interviewed unless they had been in jail specifically for some sort of rebellious act.

~~~~~~~~~~

As pacification was reported in more and more places, the combat phase began to wind down. Raiders and troops were still busy looting, however - and they were going about it as fast as possible now because they knew that Megatron may give a stand-down order at any time. This work was now very efficient, and entire areas were already literally cleared down to the sand. Even around where Megatron stood, chunks of broken crystal structures were being taken. The crystal could be recycled and used as components in ceramic insulators and other such parts.

Soon, thousands of construction workers arrived. Their first stop was the area around the remains of Canterlot Castle where the slaves were being held. They began to drill hundreds of water wells in strategic locations and lay pipes to carry the liquid to its final destinations. The drilling phase went extremely fast since the workers were already used to drilling for oil. Water tended to be much less deep in the ground, and it wasn't thick like crude, so this made a water project comparatively easy.

Once that was done, they waited for the order to spread out the slave cages. For now, they waited for Megatron to finish off Cadence - this would be shown over the holovisions that were already set up, so it was best to leave everyone in position for now so they would get a good view.

[Vallermoore]

Equestria

Masher's contact said that whilst he could not totally rule an execution out, it was likely to be no higher then a 10% chance at most because of Stomper's youth. What was most likely was that someone of very high rank in Domintel, possibly even General Soundwave himself, would meet with Stomper and give him a strong telling off, and explain exactly why his action was frowned upon when done during an active campaign. If Stomper had been fully adult, it might have been very different indeed.
*****

"Well, after what I did before I can understand why you didn't tell me you were sapient earlier, in case you needed to blast me if I did something horrible to you again. When the campaign stops and we get back to Cybertron and the shops reopen, we'll go to a safe shop for your very own personal Energon Vault, then we'll buy a present or two and I'll give you plenty of Energon of your own. And then we'll have a couple of Cubes of Energon Supreme for you." MasterBlaster was happy that all was well with SolarStorm. "You are growing up mentally so fast. When we have our Energon from our loot let's take it to our vaults for safety."

Changeling Kingdom

"Our cutie marks show our special talent," said the loyal colt. "I may be too young to become one of you yet, but that might be possible in the future. I hope you don't enslave me-surely I can give more to your Empire free rather then chopping and hauling rock all day?" The other prisoners were realising that being held captive by the changelings gave them strangely enough at least an outside chance of being allowed to stay free.

*****
With her Doom nearly upon her, Cadence expanded to Megatron size. Her shield was weakened, but it did bust the cage that was not meant to hold gods and goddesses. Her special talent was creating love, and she cast a love spell at Megatron, trying to make him think that she was his beloved daughter.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crystal Empire

Megatron watched Princess Cadence get big, but before he could blast her apart like confetti, his internal debug system went off like a 10-alarm fire.


HACKING DETECTED
FALSE VARIABLE SET DETECTED
variable $LineMember = 1 for $Subject "Cadence"
variable $Subject896907Opinion has been set to "Love"
MULTIPLE LOGIC CHECK FAILURES - HACKING ACTIVITY CERTAIN
Memory check: Coded a biological of this nature - NEGATIVE
Memory check: Adopted biological as offspring - NEGATIVE
Memory check: Coded quadruped anything - NEGATIVE
Memory check: Has ever loved a biological - NEGATIVE
Memory check: Start of direct memories of $Subject - 5 MINUTES AGO
Reality check: Age of $Subject variables - SEVERAL YEARS AT LEAST

PATTERN CONSISTENT WITH SUCCESSFUL HACK OF SKILL LEVEL 1
ISOLATING AFFECTED VARIABLES
ALTERING ACCORDING TO AUTOMATIC LOGIC SEQUENCE NUMBER 9973978
RESETTING VARIABLES
$LineMember = 0 for $Subject "Cadence"
$Subject896907Opinion = "Hatred"
$Subject896907OpinionStrength = 90
ACTIVATING VARIABLE RESET SUBROUTINES
ALTERATION COMPLETE


The entire processing and adjustment had taken place in 1/100 of a second and was done as a reflex, so Megatron felt the results even before he knew his anti-hack program had activated.

Seemingly instantly, he was filled with a burning, black hatred for Princess Cadence and he instantly opened fire with his full force without bothering to say a word. He sent a mental beam to the local sun to draw more power if necessary. This...this horrible, disgusting, evil, hated enemy had to DIE! He hated her so badly that he could hardly think of anything else but exterminating her as fast as he could! His eyes were almost completely black, showing only a mere slit of the deepest red as a sign of life, and his engine roared loudly as it provided full power. By the time he was consciously aware of any of the details of the output and actions of his hack-recovery programming, he had already fired several times - the last few with the force augmented by his tapping of the sun's energy.

The first detail he became conscious of was the output's initial phrase: HACKING DETECTED. From that alone, he knew that his special, self-coded script was in effect. He had written it to protect himself from malware that managed to make it past his antivirus programs, but the way it worked made it able to kick in upon detecting ANY kind of hacking and make adjustments to either negate the hacks or make them backfire upon the hacker. Megatron didn't consciously scan any more of the information yet - those two words were enough to see while the battle was still in progress. The words, and the results he was feeling, let him know that Cadence was a hacker, one of the scum of the universe, one who would destroy his free will if successful! The Decepticon Leader felt the uncharacteristic feeling of true righteousness as he continued his attack.

The Decepticons around the fighting area backed off in a hurry. They recognized that Megatron was under the influence of what was likely some sort of automatic or semi-automatic scripting - and knew that such a thing would only kick in under a small set of circumstances. As a fully-sapient bot, Megatron would have had to have coded that aspect himself at some prior time, and it was likely an emergency failsafe. Nobody had any desire to find out what Megatron considered an emergency, or at least, they didn't want to find out the hard way!

Finally, one of the onlooking Decepticons piped up. "I just checked my media files," he announced. "It is likely that that overblown horse there just tried to make Megatron loving somehow!" He laughed, enjoying how hard that had backfired.

"'Make' him loving?" The others all laughed, knowing that if there was one thing Megatron detested more than much of anything else, it was a hacker.

Elsewhere on Equestria

Decepticon soldiers stood around bored as even the looting phase came to an end. Billions of raiders had come along with the troops, and this got the job of clearing the planet of stuff done quickly. The raiders were now on their way off of the planet, hauling either cages that now held Energon or glider-trailers full of resources to be sold to the foundries and recyclers on Cybertron. The main reason the troops were still there in full numbers was simple: Megatron hadn't given the stand-down order because he was busy with Cadence. "C'mon, win so we can blow this place," some of the troops quietly said to themselves.

Of course, not all of the troops would get to blow that place - enough would have to stay to keep it from being invaded by some other planet. There would also have to be an ongoing force to keep all of the slaves in line once they were assigned to mines, oil fields, quarries, and any other suitable work sites. It would be some time before true overseers were hired to do this guarding. Right now, there were only 9 overseers on the entire planet - and they had come to raid.

~~~~~~~~~~

Overseer looked at his special cages, now full of changelings, and smiled with satisfaction. "You will be coming with me," he told them all. "I will have the first mine with four-legged stock in it, and once again, I shall show that my methods of slave-driving result in the most production possible." He proceeded to press a button on the cages, and they immediately hovered on cushions of air as panels came out from under the floor. These panels quickly spread out and then folded upwards, transformation-style, encasing the cages in airtight boxes. Next, he opened small hatches on the top of each cage and dropped a tank of air into each one. The tank didn't go into the interior cage where the slaves were, but instead, landed in a specially-made indentation in its top. Finally, he opened the spigot on each air tank and then closed the hatches back up. This would provide enough air for the slaves' trip to Decepticon Earth - and Megatron Metals Mine #1.

"How long do you think they'll last?" One of Overseer's zombie friends asked.

"I figure we'll get a week's worth of work out of them alive. They don't look used to labor at all. They do eat some funny kind of energy, based on what I overheard the soldiers saying, so they might last a bit longer. Even so, once they're dead, their bodies will no longer feel pain from being worked at full speed and they'll be far more useful since they won't hold back anymore. I'd guess something like that will run for a good 6 months as a zombie and maybe even a year. Of course we will have to chip them in a secure area before anything else. Otherwise they'll all pretend to be other things and interfere with production. I'm also ordering another million from the Cloning Center. Those stops will only cause a slight delay." Overseer smiled, clearly enjoying the scenes he was imagining.

In the cages, there was no special panic as Overseer talked. The captives didn't know Binary, so they couldn't guess the full level of horror that awaited them. Soon, they felt themselves get hefted aloft with a jerk, and they were on their way to the Decepticon Empire's most brutal mining complex.

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

"You can bet I was on the lookout!" SolarStorm said. "But you seem to have been good after that." SolarStorm smiled a bit at MasterBlaster's comment about him being mentally growing up. The term was, to him, a quaint biologicism. Decepticon minds expanded, of course, but the phrase indicated a physical process - and one that specifically resulted in a taller being, as shown by the "up" part of the term.

"Anyway, what's the point of waiting until the campaign ends? We got our loot! Let's go spend it and leave the soldiers to do the campaigning!" He was very antsy to get back to Cybertron because that's where his presents were. Under other circumstances, he would have been far more curious about the biologicals around - the ones in the cage and the others he would see at the dropoff point - but now that he had heard the magic word "presents," he had no other goal than to get them.

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

Domestic Intelligence, Cybertron

"It was just a matter of time before we'd have to take action on Masher's kid," one of the high-ranking agents was saying.

"Yeah, those big raid gang offspring are always a handful. It's even worse when their Coders manage to bribe them out of trouble. When that happens, you might as well just send 'em straight to the foundry." A different agent responded.

"Those jerks always think they're above the law," another complained. "I can't wait to give this brat a good denting!!"

"That's what we'll do. We'll have a squad go after him right now, while he's still on Equestria and doesn't have a chance to mind-transfer to some damned giant thing, and have them bash some sense into him while he's still young enough to learn!" The first one said with finality. With that, he radioed Equestria and ordered a group of 10 soldiers to find Stomper and pound him until he was covered in dents all over. Of course, they were also to inform him of the reason he was getting this punishment.

How DomIntel dealt with misbehaving, half-sapient youngsters was decided on a case-by-case basis. With some, an explanation might be enough. For one who had already fought a duel and won and was also the offspring of a syndicate bigwig known for violence? He would see a mere talking-to as weak and have no respect for it.

[Vallermoore]

Cadence noticed Megatron's eyes become so dark that they almost turned off. If it were not for the very dim red glow, it might seem that he had mind-transferred to another body. A second or two later he opened fire with both the fusion cannon and his other blaster. Even if her shield had been at full strength, it could not have lasted long against the amount of blaster fire Megatron was pouring into it. It popped like a bubble and the Megatron-size Cadence exploded, sending blood and bone and pieces of flesh everywhere. It was just as well that the other Decepticons had got out of the way, as they avoided being splattered by it. Cadence's skull was the only intact bone left. With her death, the last of the alicorns was gone.

****
A squad of soldiers and a couple of Domintel officers easily located Stomper, grabbed him and pulled him to the ground, the Domintel officers showing their Domintel Seals, just in case there were nearby IOPC around who might otherwise have opened fire on them. "This is official Domintel business. Stomper, if you were fully sapient, despite who you are you would face either deactivation or meltdown for what you did. In peacetime it is legal to open fire on any Decepticon for any reason that is not treason. But you acted that way on an active military campaign. Any Decepticon who attacks another one in wartime helps the enemy war effort and as such commits treason. Now we don't generally execute either non sapient or partly sapient juveniles as they are unaware or not fully aware that what they did is wrong. In some cases, we just talk to them and tell them off, but that clearly won't work on you. Open his panels and solder his pain switch in the "on" position." Once the panels had been crowbarred open and the pain switch soldered, they began to systematically beat Stomper, denting his body all over in the same way that MasterBlaster had been beaten for maltreating SolarStorm. When the beating was over, they left him lying on the ground in great pain. Hopefully this would prevent him committing treason again.

*****
MasterBlaster told SolarStorm "Just let me check Decepticon military law on what it says about non-Military raiders leaving during a formal military campaign that has not been declared formally over. I don't want to commit treason by mistake. If it says we can go, we will go at once." It just took a matter of a second or two to find the section.
*****
The changelings wailed softly in their container-they would have wailed a lot louder if they could have understood Binary.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron fired one last blast at the skull, obliterating his enemy completely. While he would usually be interested in the DNA, he had already decided he didn't want to clone any of these weird creatures who took all of the power from their own citizens and preached about peace and harmony, yet tried to kill him in a duel and then tried to commit genocide against the entire Decepticon species when that didn't work. Of course, he was sure that they would have tried to spin the duel as an effort to protect somepony, but he saw it much differently: Celestia had been a spoiled brat who'd gone into a narcissistic rage when she didn't get her way, and her sister Luna was a super-condensed version of the same thing! Then there was this Cadence, who had tried to hack him! Some other one, who he hadn't met, had met her end at the hands of Masher, surely after pulling some other impulsive, ill-thought move. Megatron figured that it was best to just delete that entire alicorn codebase and be done with it.

After taking a circular victory walk around where he had fought Cadence, Megatron radioed Foreign Intelligence to find out if there were any more of these super-powered, but RAM-impaired, ponies left. He had found his own file on them and it indicated that there shouldn't be any more, but he figured it was best to make extra-sure. As he listened to their response, he activated his multi-threading to put an equal amount of attention onto what his internal script had generated. He couldn't help but smile when he realized that one of Cadence's biggest mistakes was to try to make him think she was related to him! The very idea was laughable. Still, his engine made a visceral harrumph noise at the hacking. Attempts to forcibly pacify him and the other Transformers had been what had backfired at the start of the Cybertronian Revolutionary War, and no way would he ever be rendered semi- or non-sapient again!

Suddenly, Megatron backfired and looked irked. ForIntel hadn't answered his main question yet, but they had mentioned another thing: There was another pony nation on the planet - and it was under the sea. Apparently, the ponies there weren't like the land ones, but instead, were confined to living in water. This made them unlikely to be threats, at least if the known intel was correct and they had no advanced technology or weapons. Even so, their existence meant that Megatron could not yet say that all of Equestria had been conquered.

"Troops," Megatron announced over the encrypted military frequency, "it seems that we are not yet done."

Attacking the sea pony lands couldn't be done on a whim, or even with the current troops. He would have to upgrade a sufficient force with advanced sealing. It would likely be best, he reasoned, to use the Magical Battalion. The magical armor would provide an extra layer of protection thanks to its ability to generate shields if the physical sealing got any leaks.

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

Canterlot Slave Containment Area

The captured ponies hung their heads as they saw Cadence get blown up as if it was nothing. Now, it was indeed over. All of the known land-based governments of Equestria had fallen, and with no alicorns left to help them, their situation seemed truly hopeless. A few might try a revolution, but against these giant robots, they surely stood no chance. Weeping was soon heard all through the slave containment area.

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

Elsewhere on Equestria

Stomper took the denting without a whimper. Only weaklings whined or pleaded. This, however, didn't mean that Stomper didn't feel any emotions. As the troops flew away, the young, ambitious, determined syndicate offspring was already formulating plans. He slowly got up, and as he used his finger torch to cut the solder on his pain switch, he already had decided to make use of the Corporation's assassins to fix whoever had ordered that beating. What he didn't realize was that almost no assassin would dare to challenge DomIntel, and that even trying to hire one for that reason would land him in the slag pit if his attempt was discovered.

"Rememba, kid. D'ere are some t'ings even da Corpa'ration doesn't mess wit'. So you talk to me if yer gettin' any big plans. Proppa plannin' is what keeps yer pistons in yer engine. Got dat?!" His Coder's words played in his mind. Somehow, he knew that Masher would not say 'yes' to this idea, and he didn't want to tell him a thing. But Stomper was not quite as sapient as SolarStorm, and he was struck by an irresistible urge to call Codey and talk to him, just like he'd been commanded. He hadn't been given many commands, so it did seem like it could be a good idea - but he really didn't want to do it and get told to cool his jets! As his main scripting put the call through, he began to consciously go through his Code to find that imperative and delete it. Even if he didn't get that done fast enough this time, having it gone would come in handy later!

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

MasterBlaster's data pack quickly revealed one of the good points about being a non-Military raider in a war zone: He was not held to Military orders. This meant that he was free to leave at any time unless Megatron specifically gave commands to the contrary.

As he was reading this, SolarStorm had gone over to the area where the sold slaves were being held and was staring at the biologicals with curiosity. These certainly didn't look like creatures who would be genocidal, yet it was one of their rulers who tried to suck Cybertron into a black hole - a black hole that had sucked in a whole planet's worth of life forms on its way into the area!

He was also curious about how they worked. His SEDP said that they were actually made of trillions of little engines, but that those engines weren't nanite swarms and instead were all specialized, yet almost all of the tiny things worked on the same general principles. All of these things combined to make larger things that had much more specialized functions, and those larger things worked together to make the one big thing he was looking at. It all sounded dreadfully complex! Yet all it'd take to crash the whole works was a good kick. "I'd rather be a robot," he said out loud as he considered this.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Metals Mine #1, Earth

The containment carts were landed harshly at one of the mine entrances, and the changelings inside could sense fear, physical pain, and the feeling associated with human exhaustion pouring from its gaping mouth. The scent of death was very thick in this area as well.

Soon, a group of specially-equipped lower-ranked overseers arrived after having been called in by Overseer. These bots were smaller than normal - likely because they had transferred to bodies more suited to the upcoming task - and they each had a specialized device casually referred to as a "chipper." This device was a combination scalpel, injector, and suturer all in one, and there was something that looked kind of like a bullet belt that ran through it. The belt, however, didn't hold bullets. Instead, it held body control chips.

Soon, the outer casings on the carts were opened, and a tiny amount of light leaked through the infinitessimal holes all over them. The changelings could hear other cages being brought close to, but not touching, their carts. They could also hear the new robots getting into position, two at each cart. They were in pairs just in case some changeling managed to run out while one of them was holding a different changeling. This way, there would always be one bot with his hands - and blasters - free.

Suddenly, hatches on the sides of the carts were opened, but before anyone could even do anything, a bit robotic hand reached into each cart and grabbed a changeling. Then, the hatches banged shut just as fast as they'd come open. Each changeling who had been grabbed was still held firmly, and the devices were placed at the backs of their necks right where the spine exits the skull. Upon activation the device cut a small slit in each changeling's neck and continued on to cut through one of the pieces of cartilage between two key vertebrae. After the cut was done, the blade retracted into a small reservoir of suitably-strong bleach, which sterilized it for the next slave. The plunger aspect then forcefully shoved a sterile, semicircular chip (in a housing) around the spinal cord and retracted almost as quickly. Once retracted, a spring mechanism pushed another chip into the loaded position so it would be ready for the next activation. Finally, the suturing aspect of the device activated and closed the wound with three small stitches before retracting into its sterilization chamber. The entire process took less than one second thanks to the device's excellent mechanical engineering, and thanks to the in-built sterilization, required no manual cleaning between slaves. It was a machine that was built for the mass processing of untamed incoming livestock, and the overseers of Mine #1 were experts in its use.

Each changeling, once chipped, was under Overseer's full control and would not be doing any changing without his explicit command. The chipped ones were ordered into the regular cages that awaited them, and their chips made them obey as if they were remote-controlled toys. As the walked to the cages, the overseers were already pulling the next ones out of the specialized containment carts and processing them the same way as the ones before.

"Welcome to Megatron Metals Mine #1," Overseer intoned loudly in his creepily-hollow voice. "The most productive iron mine in Victorious Decepticons."

Behind him, humans could be seen running at full speed while pushing carts of ore over to a big pile of the substance. These humans were not normal - one was missing an arm, some were moving with feet that flopped on broken ankles, and one had an obvious chunk missing from its head. To the changelings, another noticeable thing about the humans was that they generated no emotions at all. Alas, the only changelings who could see this were the ones who were already chipped and put in the more-open cages, and the chips prevented them from making any sort of response to the scene. They could only watch silently. Overseer had shut down their ability to speak so that they couldn't yell out and cause panic amongst the still-unchipped.

"Zombies." One of the lesser overseers stated simply, noticing that some of the new captives were tracking this action with their eyes.

[Vallermoore]

MasterBlaster said "A robot is what you are, a Decepticon robot, the best form of machine life in the universe. And we are legally free to leave as we are not in the Military at the moment. So lets get back to Cybertron to celebrate your Sapience Day." Towing their Energon from the sale of the slaves and carrying their other loot in their panels, they transformed and soon enough had entered FTL. Once they left FTL the gleaming Metal Planet of Cybertron appeared before them in all it's glory. Megatron wil never let anything or anyone destroy our glorious planet MasterBlaster thought. I remember when I first saw it, back when it was insanely dangerous to even go near the place. Now whilst it may still have plenty of danger, most of that danger is easily avoidable with basic common sense.

They found a Raid Tax place and MasterBlaster swapped the metal and the small amount of gold he had for Energon, and SolarStorm swapped his loot for Energon too. After checking that their house was ok, MasterBlaster and SolarStorm went out shopping for Sapience Day presents. Not all the shops were open yet, but the majority were. MasterBlaster brought a safe and had it keyed to his offspring's engine, and brought two games that SolarStorm pointed out, and brought himself a Human Food Processing Module.. Then they went home and had a Cube of Energon Supreme each. MasterBlaster found he could change the taste of Energon Supreme by thinking about it and changed it to apple juice-the finest apple juice ever.

"Happy Sapience Day SolarStorm...you are only 1 year old and yet you have grown mentally so much. I will never regret Coding you, even though it indirectly got me beaten once by Domintel. You will grow up to be a wonderful Decepticon. I'm going to go and see how Vintage did-I can now leave you alone safely. Of course, if a burglar tries to break in, blast him." He set off to see if Vintage was back yet.

******
Equestria

Under the waters of the ocean, the Seaponies waited for the Decepticons to leave. Whilst only the unicorns amongst them could put up any sort of fight, they were protected for now by the water. Any unsealed metal arm coming in after them would get a nasty shock and need rewiring, and any unsealed Decepticon who jumped in after them would be shorted out. Yet if captured and chipped, they could be made to work in flooded mine tunnels bringing out otherwise unreachable ore. Forintel reported to Megatron that it was possible that there might be the sea version of an alicorn, but all the land alicorns were dead for certain. Every pony slave in the cages near Canterlot Castle was weeping, enough to make a small stream of salty nears from the sheer number of sobbing ponies in one place. With their last alicorn ruler gone, slavery was clearly their fate. The Crystal Ponies were the most unhappy-having been freed from Sombra, a still harsher tyranny was to be imposed on them.


*****
Much against his will, Stomper had to radio Masher. "Coder....I badly need some Coder-son time right now. Domintel beat me up badly and now I'm covered with dents all over." He continued searching for the unwanted Code but it would take him a few hours to find and delete it. When he did, it would be his first Sapience Day.
*****
Megatron Metals Mine #1, Earth

Some of the captured changelings waiting to be grabbed grew spikes to try and hurt the hands that would grab them, whilst at least one took a phial of condensed hate to commit suicide in the hope of escaping a life as a slave.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"We aren't the 'best form of machine life in the universe,' " a passing Decepticon said indignantly, butting into MasterBlaster's comments to Solar Storm. "We are the best form of ALL life in the universe!" He stepped forward aggressively, but addressed SolarStorm. "ALL other forms of life are just beta creatures. Fodder for the rendering plants. Don't you forget that, kid. There is one kind of being worthy of being called sapient, and that is US! These things' idea of a GOD blew up like a meat balloon once it got in the way of Megatron! If that's their idea of a god, you can see just how ridiculously weak they really are!"

~~~~~~~~~~

Once they were back on Cybertron, SolarStorm reminded MasterBlaster that the reason he got beaten up by DomIntel was because he deserved it, not 'indirectly because he Coded him.' He wondered if humans always tried to twist things up like that rather than accept responsibility. According to his SEDP, stuff like that was a good way to end up in the way of a SAM since the laws of physics cared naught for psychological wrangling.

After MasterBlaster made his hasty exit to go over to Vintage's shop, SolarStorm decided that a proper party was in order. One should have been provided, but since that didn't seem to be happening, he decided to make it happen. He quickly radioed everyone he knew from the Raid Games Emporium, except for ElectronBlitz (who he thought was still functional), and let them know that it was his Sapience Day. Soon enough, 20 youngsters arrived accompanied by a couple of experienced Coders who thought it would be a good idea for there to be some chaperones around. SolarStorm wasn't too happy to see the adults because he figured they'd wreck the fun. In reality, they made sure that the house wouldn't get wrecked and that nobody would end up seriously dented. They also brought some minor gifts, which they sold to SolarStorm for token amounts.

When MasterBlaster arrived at Vintage's shop, he found the blast shades down. Apparently, the chop shop operator was still out raiding. As he stood there, he heard the sound of a familiar engine. It was Remediator, and he was carrying a Decepticon body of a different design over his shoulder.

"Well, well! If it isn't MasterBlaster!! What are you doing standing here? There's raiding to do! Granted, we won't HAVE TO raid for centuries thanks to that great haul we got, but still. No point in letting other people have the loot! As for me," He patted the body he was holding with his free hand, "it seems that one of my old enemies just happened to get hit with a blast that must have come from one of the few pointy-headed things that were left on Equestria when he tried to land. And, woe unto him, the magic also included a radio scrambling effect. I was nearby, so I decided to take his carcass in and turn it into something useful. Looks like Vintage is still out raiding, though..." He looked over at the closed blast shades.

Remediator, of course, had blasted his enemy himself complete with jamming on. Unlike the young Stomper, however, he knew how to set it up so it looked like some unicorn did it.

He did remember that MasterBlaster was the one who wanted to arrogantly pay whenever he felt like it, but in his books, that issue had been suitably taken care of. It was, as he had said then, just business, so he had no problems with talking to MasterBlaster now as he waited for the chop shop to open up again.

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

Equestria

General Carjack and a few Genociders flew into the slave collection area, and soon, the General walked to where the stream of tears was flowing the most strongly. He took a cup out of his side panel and dipped it in, making a point of letting all of the ponies see what he was doing. Once he was sure he had maximum attention, he drank it down.

"Ahh," he gloated. "Nothing like literally drinking the salt tears of those foolish enough to have been the enemies of the Decepticons!!"

As he did this, he secretly looked over the inmates in the crowded cages. He didn't say anything yet, and it was impossible to see just how closely he was watching thanks to the hard-to-read red eye panels. But what he was doing was making a note of which captives would be worth keeping...and which ones were to be sent directly to Biological Rendering.

Carjack strolled through the warrens of cages, using his prodigious RAM to store visual data on each and every pony he passed by. The small contingent with him spread out and did the same thing. Elsewhere in the collection zone, other Genociders were similarly occupied. With the group they had, they would be able to complete the selection process within a couple of hours.

Off in the distance, a group of Genociders and construction bots arrived pulling several large glider-trailers. They landed, and then efficiently emptied the trailers of their contents, which included large curved metal panels, hugely-long blades, some large filters, and some kind of materials-compression devices. Next, they assembled these parts in a way that showed that they had practice. It only took about an hour to get the portable Biological Rendering Unit put together. Next, they took out one final piece of equipment: A generator. This was connected to the Rendering Unit. This process was repeated at several points along the edges of this big collection zone as well as at multiple places near the other collection zones Megatron had ordered cages moved to.

It was unlikely that the ponies knew what the big pieces of equipment were for, or why this one group of Decepticons seemed so businesslike and grim as they walked through the rows. This may have been for the better, although if they were clued in, things would surely become a bit harder for the Decepticons.

One of the troops came and approached the General, who even the ponies could see was of some advanced rank. "Do we really have to play SS?!" He said with some aggravation. "They're all crummy beta creatures. Requesting permission to just blast them down to quota and be done with it, sir!"

"Denied!" Carjack snapped back. "We must make sure that the mines get the good stock! And don't be complaining about the origin of this sorting method. A stopped clock is right twice a day, and the SS's 'rightness' was their skill at determining who could work and sorting them from the others! Therefore we will swipe that method for the sorting process and I don't want to hear any more complaints about it!!"

In one cage, a pony with a "1010" cutie mark, showing his skill at understanding computer language, understood the entire exchange. However, he didn't understand the references. What was the SS? What sorting method? And what was the 'stock' the mines were to get? He also wondered what those big vats were that had been set up.

"Bring in the empty cages," Carjack was now ordering over his communicator. "Remember, we need twice as many cages as we have now. These aren't puny humants, so it will likely be better not to be so damned blatant..."

As the cages were being brought in, a large amount of other Decepticons arrived. They immediately got to work spreading out the ones that were already present in order to make room for the new ones. Then, the Genociders opened the current ones and ordered each pony, individually, into one of two cages now in front of its original one. In some cases, one of the new cages would still be almost empty while the other one would be almost full, while in other cases the situation was reversed or it worked out about evenly.

When all was done several hours later, the point of this was apparent to those who were willing to really think about it, though the pollyanna types would likely put a psychological block on the obvious: The young, healthy ponies had been separated from old, overly-young, and sickly ones.

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

Megatron Metals Mine #1

As overseers reached into the cages for the next round of slaves, they jerked their hands back while making high-pitched revs of surprise. "There's sharp things in there!" One exclaimed, showing a scratch in his hand paint. Then, they opened the little doors back up, leaned over, and peeked in. Inside, they saw that the changelings near the front now had spikes.

Groaning, they closed up the containers and walked off, but only to the equipment area of the mine just inside the shaft. There, they grabbed gloves and put them on. Usually, the gloves were worn so that they could grab handfuls of ore when they needed it to be moved faster than the slaves could do it - rock was very abrasive, so gloves were needed in order to protect their paint. Now, these special gloves would protect their hands from changeling spikes.

Soon, they were back to work, and they began pulling out the spiky creatures and chipping them. For these, the first command was to de-spike. Then they were marched into the cages with the other chipped ones.

Suddenly, one pulled out a very limp and almost mushy thing. "Hey, Overseer, here's our first changeling zombie!" He called out, tossing the carcass in his boss' direction.

"Wonderful!" Overseer said non-ironically. "I wonder what killed it? Oh well, who cares. IT sure won't! It's still fresh, though, so its mind will get to experience what it's like to be a soulless zombie, at least until the brain tissue degrades for another hour or so." He chipped the body and then held the little corpse in his hand while willing an intention at it. After about 10 minutes of this, a small sound was heard. Overseer opened his hand, set the now-standing and still healthy-looking changeling on the ground, and ordered it into a cage. It obeyed like a mindless machine, but its eyes were now wild with fear and what appeared to be pain. The pain was likely because it could once again feel the poison in its system, and biological bodies were never very good at knowing when pain was futile.

The changelings inside the unit couldn't see what happened, and since the robots spoke in Binary, couldn't understand them. Those who knew the now-undead one, however, did recognize his voice when he was reactivated.

[Vallermoore]

When the passing bot butted in, for a moment MasterBlaster thought there was going to be a fight, but it turned out he was not that angry, just setting things straight with how a Decepticon should think.

*****
It turned out all the twenty bots had brought de facto gifts and two of the gifts were bigger then the others. Most of the gifts were just little things; a Police Pack to have fun destroying, a Cubelet of Energon Supreme, and such things. A couple had brought new games, clearly in their proper packaging. At this young age, this meant one of two things. Either they were genuinely showing how much they liked having SolarStorm around, or it was indeed the first act in a connive of some kind. Most likely it was the first thing; but even at this age, some bots had been Coded to like conniving even more then the average Decepticon did. They started having fun together, the adults keeping a wary eye on them.

*****
MasterBlaster sighed when he found the shop shut, but smiled as he imagined Vintage out raiding. He spun around when he heard a rev that he recognised. Decepticons who knew a bot well could recognise their rev's like a human could recognise a voice. It turned out to be Remediator carrying a bot's body that he had clearly blasted. In a second or two, he made it so that if a fight broke out that he was losing, or if he got grabbed by Remediator's gang, he could mind transfer to another body at once, before being killed or having a virus forcibly put into him. But Remediator seemed friendly enough. "Hi Remediator-we have not met for a long time. Clearly the raid on those idiot ponies who tried to destroy Cybertron must have gone well for you-it went well for me and my offspring SolarStorm. I hope all is doing well for you and your gang-whilst as say, you don't have to raid, not raiding would get boring after a while. How is Spectre doing?" As they walked towards the foundry together, MasterBlaster dropped back a step or two as if to quickly look in a shop window and then lightly, as lightly as if he were pickpocketing (not that Decepticons had pockets as such) turned the face of the blasted robot carcass towards him.

This had it's risks-if Remediator found out, he might think MasterBlaster was planning to steal from him, and MasterBlaster would just have to deny it vigorously and hope for the best. But he wanted to see if he knew the bot that Remediator had blasted. Most likely he didn't, and they could just walk on to the foundry together and chat. If it was Blue, it showed how awesomely dangerous Remediator was if he could kill a Scrounger. If it was Silver Blaze, Remediator had done him a favour without knowing it, as he now very likely had a free house to live in. He liked Silver Blaze, but not enough to try and avenge him. If it was Vintage-that was the only bot that he knew well enough, and liked enough, to then want to try and kill Remediator for. Mind you, as he had proved when they sparred together, Remediator was indeed a deadly foe. In a direct combat, MasterBlaster would be heading for a foundry, but there were other ways to bring even a mighty bot low such as a poisoned Energon cube. He very much hoped the bot was not Vintage; not only would he have lost his one true friend on Cybertron, but taking on Remediator and losing would get him killed outright.

*****
One of the few changelings as yet ungrabbed waited until he was not being looked at and changed into a miniature Decepticon, one with a symbol he had seen that happened to be the symbol of Forintel-not that he knew what the symbol was . It might give him a bit of time at least-if he could trick his captor into letting go of him, he could try and be the first escapee from Megatron Mine #1.

[Victorious Decepticons]

SolarStorm thanked everyone for their "great deals," and lavished extra thanks on those who brought games, but he didn't play them yet. He remembered very well what he had intended for ElectronBlitz and what ended up happening to Stomper instead, and was quite adamant about not ending up on the wrong end of that stick. He would keep the games and be nice, but would take both of them to the local Debugging Center to be thoroughly checked before installing them.

For now, he needed to come up with something for everyone to do. He initially suggested a paintball battle, but the adults put the kibosh on that plan by reminding him that it'd wreck the house by getting paint all over it. Doing it outside wasn't a good idea either since passers-by would get really mad if they were hit by stray paintballs. SolarStorm hmmph'd petulantly; he knew having adults there would just ruin the fun! Finally, he put an already-present multiplayer game into the holovision deck, and after the group spent several minutes adjusting themselves so they could all see the display despite their big bodies, they began to play that.

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

"What the heck are you doing?" Remediator said, but he had already turned on his rear-facing camera and managed to get a good idea of what was going on. "Oh, you want to see if you know this chunk 'o scrap?" He stopped and let the body drop in a careful way that avoided adding more dents to the still-resellable panels. "This joker here was Ninja. He was a scout for the Drilling Experts. People used to think he was great at finding oil, but what he really did was spy on gangs like mine, manage to get the location of a raid target, and then tell the DE where it was. Then those fools would go in first, so when we got there, there'd either be nothing left or a big army waiting to blast the next Decepticon who showed up!" He looked down at the big metal corpse. "It's a shame he got shot down by some little pony, isn't it?" He said with a grin.

Soon, he hefted the deactivated body back up and kept walking. "Too bad Vintage's is shut. He pays the best. But I don't want to wait any more, so I'm going to take this thing to another chop shop. Oh, and as for Specter, I presume he's doing quite well. He's still with us, but I haven't seen him since I left Equestria. I presume he's sneaking into some vault or something. He went there with a rather large cart and had intended to hit the Canterlot Treasury - he figured that every Decepticon and his line-mate would be after the oil fields or refineries, and decided to try to avoid the competition."

After several minutes, and a few turns down some unfamiliar streets, they arrived at a fairly large business whose sign advertised it as "Death to Life Pre-Owned Parts." Unlike Vintage's place, this one was brightly-lit and had shelves with well-organized used parts for sale that could be seen through the windows. "Look at how fancy it is," Remediator complained. "That just jacks up the cost of overhead and makes it so they can't pay as much. They also charge more if you're buying. But I have better things to do than walk around carrying 10 tons of junk, so Death to Life it is." With that, he walked in, and was immediately met by a fairly obsequious bot who ushered him into a back room.

At this place, appraisals and dismantling wasn't done out on the sales floor - that wouldn't be classy enough for them. Once back there, though, the process was much the same as at Vintage's: The body was opened up, salvagable parts identified and bargained over, and the un-salvagable parts returned to the would-be seller so they could then be taken to the foundry.

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

Slave Sorting Area

Finally, everything was ready. All of the existing sites for slaves were identified, and tools were brought in for the slaves to make even more mines with. Troops came and began hauling the cages of suitable workers to these sites, and the relief in the chosen cages was palpable. They understood, perhaps for the first time, what the Decepticons meant when they said that it was a privilege to be allowed to work for them as slaves - and thereby allowed to live.

Off in the distance, the engines of the Rendering Units could be heard starting up, followed by the powerful whirling noise of the grinder blades within. Soon, the cages of those deemed too weak for labor were being moved to those units. Suddenly, however, General Carjack called a halt. "Hey, those winged ones will just fly away if we open their cages over those units!" He called out on the radio using his Battalion frequency. "We're going to have to rig up vacuums to attach to the bottoms of the cages so we can suck 'em down!"

These cages had trapdoor bottoms, and the original plan had been to just open 'em up over the rendering pits and let gravity take the captives into the grinders for instantaneous processing. Thanks to the existence of pegusi in the cages, though, this plan would not grant a flawless operation. The cages were set down as Carjack radioed the Main Base to get the necessary parts, leaving the captives within them close enough to hear the sound of machinery coming from the units. Despite this proximity, though, they likely wouldn't realize just what was set up inside of the round metal walls.

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

Masher picked up his communicator. "DomIntel beat ya up, huh? I s'pose now ya wanna get me ta send da Corpa'ration at 'em. Or get permission ta send some'a my assassins at 'em!" He instantly guessed, knowing that his offspring's temperament was much like his own. "Well, lemme tell ya. Ya see dat big army we all came in wit'? Dat army dat belongs ta da leada? Well, dat's what ya get in yer face if ya do dat, and what I get in my face if I say okay ta' dat."

He paused a long time and let this sink in really good.

"Now since yer my kid, I'll explain more. Da Corpa'ration's a strong group. We got 10 t'ousan' adjuncts. Dat's a big army! But Megatron, he's gotta billion directs. An' dey ain't no wimps eitha. So de're gonna win if we go ta war. I'm sorry, kid, I really am. I don' like dat eitha. Dey gotta lotta gall beatin' on you. But we gotta just drink it. Otha'wise, yer gonna be on da holovision, and not as a star, ya get me?!"

Stomper's engine revved in frustration, but he could see that his Coder was right. The numbers were all in Megatron's favor. "Maybe we should get RID of~~"

"Shuddup!!" Masher knew what his offspring was thinking and cut him off right away. "Ya don' say stuff like dat!! Not ever! Not even in anger or for a joke!! Dey were actually bein' nice ta you cuz yer a kid. But you say stuff like dat, and it's ALL OVA! Yer ingots no matter how young you are!! Now apologize fer even t'inkin it. Say 'sorry' now!"

"Ummm..." Stomper had never heard his Coder sound so mad or so concerned. He didn't understand what was soo wrong with wanting to say they should get rid of Megatron, after all, that's what Masher did to all other challengers to his authority! But he could tell that he had better do it, or else, though he didn't get just how much "else" that could really be. "Um, okay...I'm sorry for saying that...But what's wrong with that? Isn't that what we always do to the competition?"

"Dat one yer t'inkin a' ain't just competition, kid." Masher said, more softly now but still with firmness. "Dat's da smartest and strongest. And not only dat, dat's da guy who makes da entire enta'rprise possible. Wit'out dat guy, da entire Empire goes ta chaos and nobody gets so much as a used oil filta. You'll unda'stand more when yer older. As fer now, when we get back ta Cybertron, I'll give ya an Advanced Pack in History so ya know just what yer talkin' about."

After he hung up, Stomper realized that it was a very bad idea to attack DomIntel or its leader. Still, he kept working on deleting that forced-call code so that he could make up his own mind about calling the next time. He was maturing enough to realize that he didn't like being forced, but not yet mature enough to really comprehend that he would REALLY have been dead metal otherwise.

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

Domestic Intelligence Headquarters

At DomIntel Headquarters, a printout immediate came forth from a slot on one of the agents' desks. The Supercomputer had just flagged Stomper as a High Rebellion Risk requiring 24/7 active surveillance based on the part of a sentence that had been picked up over comms analysis and the context that surrounded it.

From now until an indefinite time in the future, Stomper's every single move, statement, engine noise, and facial expression would not only be recorded, but those recordings and videos would be forwarded to live agents for scrutiny. For that kid, any sort of privacy was a thing of the past. On Equestria, a covert agent received a message, and within minutes, was within visual range of the new high-risk surveillance target.

Near the back of the headquarters room, an agent sent off a coded message to Masher.

Masher checked his communicator later and cursed. That's the last thing he needed. He always kept things on the up-and-up with Megatron, but even so. Business tended to work better without feds sticking their noses into it, even when those noses were metal.

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

Megatron Metals Mine #1

The overseer was shocked when he felt a Decepticon-type shape in his hand, and when he pulled it out and found a ForIntel-marked 'bot,' he was even more shocked. Still, he didn't let go. He thought it rather unlikely that Overseer would have captured a tiny Decepticon, let alone one marked like that. While he didn't know much about changelings, he knew enough about Foreign Intelligence to be pretty sure that this couldn't be one of its agents.

"ForIntel, huh?" He smirked, intentionally using Binary. "So, 'agent,' what's your serial number and base so I can radio in and confirm your ID?!"

[Vallermoore]

MasterBlaster was relieved that Remediator wasn't going to suddenly blast him. He decided that it was best not to mention that he feared that Remediator had killed Vintage for a moment. That might not go down that well to say the least. "So that bot you blasted was more or less a nark. Good riddance to him." He smiled at the thought of all the gold bits that Spectre would surely find in the Canterlot Treasury. Once that was melted down and sold abroad, a lot of Energon Cubes would be finding their way into Spectre's vault. He waited for Remediator to return from the room with Energon Cubes, wondering which bots had replaced him when he was called for conscription and the one who was killed whilst protesting against Megatron. He hoped Vintage would be back soon.

*****
Slave Sorting Area

The slaves had now been sorted, in one lot of cages were the foals and stronger ponies, in the other the old, weak, and wounded and the Royal Guard officers and the older foals. Unlike the Nazis, the Decepticons understood that killing the very young was a waste. The pony who understood Binary had been quietly passing on what he had heard to the other ponies.

******
Elsewhere on Equestria

Stomper carried on finding the unwanted code and a few hours later he had deleted it, and came up with a plan. What if an Energon Bomb like the one that he placed in MasterBlaster's house could be dropped on the Megatron Mansion, or better still, Megatron himself as he and the High Generals discussed strategy? The explosion would surely take out the whole lot of them and then his father and himself could rule Cybertron. Now, however, was not the time for such a thing, as even if the plan worked, the outraged Decepticons would just blow him to scrap for killing Megatron. He encrypted the plan and decided to fly to his father and get himself undented.
*****
Megatron Metals Mine #1

The Changeling tried to reply in Binary but the result was like translation software gone crazy.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"Well, he wasn't a nark, per se," Remediator said. "He didn't tell any authorities we were coming. However, he was a spy, and his spying let his own gang get the drop on us all too often. Then their gang would go in first while the target was still unsuspecting, but once one gang hits a planet, its military does tend to show up. Something about giant raiders from space coming down and taking a bunch of oil seems to motivate these places to be on the lookout for more. But if it wasn't for this guy, WE often would have been the first in - leaving THEM with nothing but SAMs and empty refinery tanks." The gang leader was clearly in a good mood, as most Decepticons were when they got rid of enemies or obtained a lot of loot. When both were happening during the same operation, everything was roses. He strolled into the alternative chop shop practically whistling while thinking of the tankers full of Equestrian oil he and the rest of his group had already sold at a convenient Raid Dropoff Point - and the fact that he'd never be ninja'd by Ninja again.

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

Already-Existing Mines Across Equestria

The ponies who were taken from the sorting area were surprised when they got to their worksites. Instead of troops, they saw plenty of bots marked with what appeared to be a corporate logo. It was a picture of a large ingot made of a silvery material with something printed across it in Binary.

At each mine entrance, the greeting was roughly the same: "I am [overseer's name], an overseer for Megatron Metals, which is Cybertron's giant metal mining and processing conglomerate. I and my staff will be in charge of you from now on. Your new jobs are simple. You will be trained in how to operate high speed mining equipment and then you will mine the ore of this planet. You will mine it until you meet the daily quota. Those who slow down will be flogged. Two offenses and we render you as unsuitably productive. Rendering means we grind you to a pulp and use you for fertilizer. Avoiding being rendered is simple in principle. All you have to do is obey and keep working at full speed. In reality, some of you will not be able to meet the quotas. Some of you will try to slow down. Some of you will simply have personalities that compel you to be recalcitrant. The bottom line is that by this time next month, there will be less of you. Do your best not to become one of the ones who disappear."

"Right now, these mines are not set up to Decepticon standards, so your first job will be to alter these tunnels so that they meet the specs. Widening the tunnels is the first job, and this in itself will require mining because the extra stuff has to go somewhere. Our engineers, who are using smaller bodies so that they can fit in the existing configuration, will tell you how and where to dig."

"Those of you with mining experience may get the idea that we are somehow 'doing it wrong' because our methods will often differ from your own. We remind you that we are made of metal and therefore have the incentive of life and death behind our operations, not only for you, but for us. We know EXACTLY what we are doing. Those who claim otherwise will be summarily terminated without hesitation."

"One final thing. You may or may not have heard that we have technology that can directly control your bodies. We do indeed have this technology, but we'd rather see how you work out as individuals. Body-control chips essentially turn slaves into biological drones, and frankly, if we wanted an all-drone workforce, we could build it ourselves. Therefore, if you become so widely disobedient that drones would be an improvement, we'll declare you redundant, render you all into fertilizer, and build those drones. Keep that in mind when somebody suggests a revolution."

At this point, cargo-bots brought in a large number of sealed water troughs and piles of flat bread cakes. "We don't know what you usually eat, but these breads seem to go over with most species that aren't exclusively carnivorous," the overseers said. "And, after making all of that water-based fluid back there, you probably want more water, so we brought in a lot of that. We will now open the cages. Proceed through the food and water lines in an orderly fashion. And if there's any special nutrition you need, let us know now."

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

Slave Collection Area

Soon, cargo-bots arrived with the vacuum equipment General Carjack had ordered. One end was aimed down into the rendering pits, while the other end would be fitted to the cage bottoms. The General activated Empathy Down and set it to zero, but his troops had no need to do that. In fact, they were sadistically eager to carry out the final part of their Battalion's job. Carjack didn't mind their eagerness. When he was sent to delete humans, he felt the same way. Humans, he thought to himself. A nasty species. I bet these things are no better if you get to know 'em. Even so, right now they were crying, cute, furry things, so it took a bit of programmatic help to bring on the dry-ice coldness needed for this job...or at least, needed in order to be able to enjoy it.

"General!" A voice came. "We are ready to proceed!"

Carjack grabbed a cage containing both old ponies and half-grown foals of the age most likely to think a revolution was a good idea, and the Genociders in the immediate area instantly picked up cages of their own. The General strode to the closest rendering unit and attached the vacuum hose to its bottom.

"THE TIME HAS FINALLY COME TO LIVE UP TO OUR NAME!" The General yelled out, making sure to use his radio so those at the other slave sorting areas could hear him. "SHOW THESE LOSERS THEIR WEAKNESS! SHOW THEM THE FOLLY OF BELIEVING 'FRIENDSHIP WAS MAGIC!' SHOW THEM WHAT THE LAWS OF PHYSICS WILL DO TO THEM!" After a pause, he gave the official command: "KILL THEM AAALLLL!"

The next step was done in unison. The bottoms of the cages were opened, allowing the non-flying ponies to drop down the tubes towards the rendering grinders. Then, as the pegusi used their wings to hover and remain in the cage, the vacuums were turned on. In an instant, they were sucked, screaming, to their doom.

Of course, the 'all' Carjack referred to meant all of the ones not chosen for labor. Even so, over a billion 'redundant' Equestrians would be rendered over the next several days at the hands of the 10,000-strong Genocide Battalion.

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

Elsewhere

Masher was not at all pleased when Stomper showed up. His offspring was covered in dents and his eyes glowed clearly, with just a shade of dark red at the bottom.

"Yer gonna hafta be more subtle den dat if ya want sometin' otha' than a blastin'," he said as he got out his dent puller and hammers. "Lay down ova' da loot cart..." He added, getting Stomper into position for a lot of bump work. Soon, he began to dent-pull what he could and hammer the rest. While his motions were workmanlike, it was clear that he'd done this sort of thing before - perhaps on his own bodies after some sort of action that involved enemies hitting back.

"What do you mean?" Stomper asked with fake innocence. Immediately, Masher hammered a dent into him instead of out.

"Don' gimme dat oil sludge!!" Masher roared angrily. "Anybody wit' 2 bits o' RAM can see yer up ta plenty! It's all ova yer eyes! And yer engine noise! Don' you rememba a t'ing I taught ya about conniva'ry?!" He added another dent. "Dis is what ya get fer tryin' dat innocent rot on me! *Bang* Yer a Decepticon! You ain't foolin' me wit' dat rot! Now eitha' yer gonna tell me what yer up ta, or I'm gonna drag ya back ta Cybertron an' use da Corpa'ration Equipment ta haul it outta ya!!"

The equipment he spoke of was an off-the-books supercomputer meant for hacking. It wasn't nearly as powerful as DomIntel's, but since it didn't have to simultaneously process millions of threads of real-time surveillance, it didn't need to be.

Stomper didn't deny that he was up to something, but he didn't tell what it was, either. He was done with obeying this insufficiently-ambitious killjoy! HE would take the Corporation to the heights it should reach - by making it into the government of Victorious Decepticons!

When Masher ordered Stomper to follow him to Cybertron, he learned that his offspring's Sapience Day had come. Stomper refused to go, and informed him of the fact rather brattily by saying that he wouldn't follow someone who was too much of a coward to even try to attain the maximum possible heights!

Masher was overcome with mixed emotions. Most Coders found out their kids were sapient by being told to go pound metal over some order or other, and usually, the joy of knowing that sapience had come overrode the aggravation factor of the specifics. However, he also knew that Stomper had his eyes on none other than Megatron himself, and he became quite sad over the realization that it likely wouldn't be long before all he had left of Stomper was a memorial ingot.

Stomper flew off angrily, likely going to Cybertron, leaving Masher to stare despondently into the sky at his receding contrail.

After a few minutes, Masher got out his communicator and contacted some of his top lieutenants. "Ya gotta stop him," he ordered and gave a quick synopsis of what the problem was. "Shoot 'im down if ya have ta - with yer jammin' off, of course! An' have some full membas waitin' at his known spares, so when he goes inta one, you can capture 'im then. And then I'll have some propa words wit' 'im!"

Once he disconnected, he got out a separate computer and downloaded several Advanced Educational Data Packs. Even if he couldn't get through to Stomper, he could at least make sure he had the education needed to not make an absolute fool of himself. Of course, he hoped that the education would also teach him why any sort of spur-of-the-moment plan would not work for such a grand ambition as the one Masher believed he had!

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

Megatron Metals Mine #1

The minor overseer smiled at the mishmash of Binary words that came forth from the imitation agent. Soon, he called his boss over to listen, and they both had a good laugh. Then, Overseer, the boss, grabbed the little Decepticon-shaped changeling and chipped it without so much as a pause. He set it down and ordered it into the cage with the others after making it change back to its normal form, but he made a mental note of what that form looked like. "I might have some fun with that one later on," he said, before going back to helping with the big slave-chipping operation.

[Vallermoore]

Megatron Metals Mine #1

Changelings proved to be surprisingly good miners-they were used in freedom to making their Hives by digging in the earth and even rock at times. Of course, in freedom they were used to frequent breaks and being paid with regular meals of love. Here they had neither and were merely digging machines, only able to think about the freedom they had once enjoyed. With no love to feed them on they would start to starve to death after a few days of hard labour, much sooner if they were not allowed to drink water every now and then.

Already-Existing Mines Across Equestria

The ponies meekly did as they were told. One of them said "We need apples to keep as healthy and fit for work in the long term, Sir." Most of the ponies after their meal soon got down to their duties of enlarging the tunnels like they were told to do, grateful that they had not been chipped and turned into helpless pony drones. Some of them started to sing, something common amongst sapient ponies. Amongst them were the three Cutie Mark Crusaders who were soon to get their cutie marks in mining. But there would be no cutecenara parties to celebrate for them. At least they could see their enemies, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, being made to work alongside them. Of course there were a few ponies who decided that they were going to slack off or even try and escape, despite their watchful Decepticon guards. Crystal Ponies were far less likely to try to escape, having gone through slavery under King Sombra.

EverGreen Forest

Normally most ponies were too scared to enter this place where the clouds moved by themselves and strange and dangerous monsters lurked, but now those who were not captured or dead were hiding under the forest canopy. The sheer number of trees made it hard for Decepticons to get in there.

Slave Collection Area

The old ponies and other unwanted ones screamed and wailed and cursed the Decepticons as they fell or were sucked down into the grinders. Normally pegasui after death were cremated on pyres for their spirits to return to the air, whilst earth ponies and unicorns were buried in the earth after death, instead their bodies would be ripped apart whilst they were still alive.

*****
Elsewhere

As Stomper flew through space, he considered ambushing Megatron and dropping his bomb on him when he returned to the Government District. Then he and his Coder could rule Cybertron. He made no outward sign of his thoughts which was why Domintel did not pick up on it and alert an execution squad. Unknown to him, the IOPC were planning to subdue him before he could get himself turned into a memorial ingot the size of a human through his own stupidity. His most powerful spare body, the one he had used in the arena, had it's joints unscrewed for now. The others were bound and had their blasters removed, as if they were being taken to Megatron for judgement, and three bots took up position beside each one. Several IOPC bots in extra-strong bodies flew in behind him and got close. One of them radioed to him "Stomper, your Coder really wants you to talk to him before you do something terminally stupid." Stomper replied with a warning shot which was when the other IOPC, acting according to Masher's orders, opened fire on him and brought him down, forcing him to mind transfer to stay alive.

Which was when he found himself bound and held. "What the hell...why are you doing this to me? Are you IOPC or...Domintel in disguise?" His engine started to run fearfully...as if these were Domintel then his other bodies had been destroyed and he was likely to face the agony of slow meltdown in the Main Pit with his pain switch soldered in the on position.

*****
Cybertron

MasterBlaster waited until Remediator came out and said "I think I need to go to Debugging as I forgot a small part of my SEDP, and I don't want the problem to get worse." Remediator was clearly in a very good mood today.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron Metals Mine #1

Overseer kept his new slaves working constantly, without even a chance to slow down, for 24 hours. Finally, a command was heard throughout the tunnels, and the working ceased. The slaves then walked to several large, hollowed-out rooms that stank of sewage. There, the changelings got their first chance to see the still-living human slaves as they all stood at long troughs that were cut through the floor where everyone relieved themselves. Not a word was spoken to let the changelings know what was going on. Their bodies simply did what their body-control chips made them do.

The humans they saw appeared to be in very bad condition. Some were clearly wounded and others were starving. The look in most of the humans' eyes was one of hopelessness. Yet, the changelings also detected a hint of their species' food within the majority of these doomed beings. It was a remnant of their time in the Education Centers, where they had been raised by caring Decepticon nannies, and the love itself was for these nannies, who had always taken good care of them as long as they were loyal to the Empire. Amazingly enough, the slaves also had some love for the Empire! Due to their brainwashing, they still believed that the Decepticons had every right to own them and that it was a great favor for them to have allowed humans to live at all. Even so, they had no love at all for Overseer or his underlings in particular, and some constantly prayed to their Divine Lord Megatron to be transferred elsewhere. The idea of actually being free didn't even cross their minds, and in fact, they had been taught in the Education Center that humans had never been free.

After they used the latrine ditch, their bodies marched into other big rooms at a medium running speed. There, a big water trough awaited. The water had picked up rust from the container, but was otherwise clean. Everyone was allowed to drink quickly for 5 minutes, and then the line moved on. Next, there was a heap of cooked, fortified rice simply dumped on the floor in what seemed to be about a 1-ton pile. Beside it were small bowls. Each human took a bowl, dipped it in the rice, and moved forward. Once out of the way, the humans consumed the rice, but their control chips did not allow them to greedily suck it down like they wanted to. Instead, they ate it in a very programmatic way, bite by bite. 20 bites later and they were done. Once the humans had eaten the rice, they stacked the bowls up and went back into the tunnels at a run - back to work for another day. Sleep had long been deprecated from human slave stock thanks to genetic engineering, and there would be no breaks in which they would be allowed to do nothing.

Overseer came into one of the rooms. "They tell me you guys somehow eat love!" He said to the changelings. "This will be the first time anyone in my mine has died for such a silly reason as 'nobody wubs dem,'" He said mockingly. "Well it won't matter for long, because soon enough, you'll all be zombies anyway. Speaking of that..." Overseer scanned the group and found the one who was already zombified. His eyes still showed awareness - and fear. "This first changeling zombie is holding up well. Still sapient even! Good, good. That means the process works well on your species."

He reached over and held a device to the zombie's neck. "Ah, it says you have produced 10% more ore than your still-living pals. Your productivity will increase even more soon..." Standing up, he said, "In any case, I doubt you'll find enough love around here to have a meal without interfering with the productivity of the other stock, and interfering with productivity will get you killed immediately. So have some rice if you can eat it. Otherwise, get back to work!"

Even this didn't give them as much choice as it sounded like. Their body control chips would force them to do one or the other after detecting the subconscious response from their brains, and that would be that.

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

Already-Existing Mines Across Equestria

The overseers were overjoyed at the meekness with which the ponies obeyed! They couldn't help but be very suspicious, though, thanks to their experiences with the untamed slaves of other species. Despite this, they were very happy with the immediate productivity and willingness to learn how to run the equipment.

When singing broke out, the Decepticons were amazed! These new slaves were so eager to work! It was as though Biological Research had already recoded them!! Some overseers even called the agency to confirm that they indeed had Version 1.0 and not some kind of secretly-upgraded versions. It was confirmed that they had Version 1.0, Baseline, of all of the species normally present on that planet. In fact, Biological Research hadn't yet gotten its cage of test subjects in and still only had the one.

In one mine, an overseer wondered if he had a glitch when three ponies, who he had memorized as being blank-flanked, started walking around with marks depicting a shovel and pickaxe. "Okay, what's going on here!" He demanded, gesturing them to come over. "How'd you get those marks?! I know you didn't have any when you walked in here!" He was hoping there were no tricks afoot, because he'd also noticed that these three were very good at their jobs.

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

Biological Research

Large Mouth lay in her small cage, panting as if she was about to die. She had been forced to run on a treadmill at top speed for the last 12 hours while being attached to electrodes that constantly read her muscle contraction speed and strength, and was only allowed to rest once she was exhausted almost to death. The smug, narkish attitude she originally had was long gone.

"So this is the little lady that started that big, big war!" A scientist said, paraphrasing some human, as he walked into the area. "I'll have you know that some idiot called Luna tried to destroy Cybertron after Megatron deleted your pathetic goddess," he said to the pony, who was still gasping for air and unable to speak. "Of course, we responded to a threat to our planet by taking over yours! Equestria is now Decepticon territory and we're already mining it! How do you like that, Test Subject Number One?"

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

Cybertron
Stomper's Hidden Area

"Masher says you were going to fly off and get yourself killed, and not only that, look like an idiot in the process!" The IOPC bot closest to Stomper said. "So he said to blast your ass and then hold you until he could get down here."

Another one piped up. "I might as well say something to you before he shows up. Seems like you want to be the next Leader of the Decepticons. That you want to be the one to touch the untouchable. Thing is, you're going about it all wrong. For one, lots of people know about it. Which means DomIntel knows about it, which means you already lose. They're not going to let you within a hundred miles of Megatron with this sort of thing coming over the Supercomputer." The friendly-to-Stomper bot stepped closer. "Look. We'd all love to raid the Big One, to do the true Ultimate Heist and steal the Empire! Anybody who says he wouldn't like to be dictator is a fuckin' liar and that's all there is to it. Even the High Generals would put a blast in his back if they thought they could get away with it, because that's the only way for them to gain that one final rank."

"Now, I want you to think about that. Do you think Leader Megatron doesn't know that? Do you think he ever really relaxes? Well I'll tell you what Masher apparently didn't, and that's that the answer is NO! He never relaxes. He never puts all of his mental energy to defragging, or playing a game, or anything else. There's always a hundred threads paying attention to everywhere an assassin can come from. Wanna know how I know this? It's simple: Megatron ain't dead yet. And you flyin' over to him half-cocked ain't gonna be what makes him dead. You also aren't thinking ahead far enough, and the key to success with any plan is to think it through properly."

"I can see that you're thinkin' that if you can just off Megatron, you'll be the new leader, and you're expecting everyone in the Empire to just fall in line and follow your vision if that happens. And you're pissed off at DomIntel for sending their enforcers after you. But what you're not seeing is that the IOPC ain't the only fief on this ball bearing. In reality, there are thousands of raiding groups, most of which are tiny compared to us, but some that are almost as big. And if Megatron went down, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM - and the rest of us - would be challenging YOU and each other for absolute supremacy all at the same time! So even if you win, you lose, unless you have some way to stop a multi-thousand-front civil war that does not involve wishful thinking."

The bot stepped back. In his lifetime, he had coded 10 offspring, and 9 of them were still functional. His second one, alas, had been much like Stomper. He had made it to the age of 4 before attempting to slip poison into the Energon destined for the High Generals' Vault at the Main Military base, and met his end in street battle. To his credit, it had taken a platoon of 15 soldiers to defeat him, but end him they did...

After about an hour, Masher's engine noise could be heard in the catacomb. He wore a worried expression, but would surely hide that before getting into Stomper's sight. It was just so hard for an IOPC member to reproduce because they tended to put a high amount of ambition into their offsprings' base code. Masher had thought he'd added a good risk/benefit analysis routine, but apparently, it wasn't good enough. He suspected that something else in Stomper's personality was interfering, but now that Stomper was sapient, changing it via coding wasn't really an option.

~~~~~~~~~~

DomIntel

The live feed from the catacombs played loud and clear with both audio and visual tracks. "Watch that brat start playing it cool and eat up years of detective time," an agent complained.

"That guy's argument is pretty good," another said. "Maybe he'll listen!"

"Nah. He thinks it's an insult to his honor to not kill the one responsible for him getting dented up, and since Masher told him not to go after the Division, he's convinced that he has to go up in ranks instead of just leaving it!" The first agent tossed a disk, and it slid across his desk to the other detective. On it was written:
"SUBJECT - STOMPER, OFFSPRING OF MASHER - CRACKED." It was one of Stomper's recent save disks.

"Forensic debugging says that the trait is in his root code. That guy probably convinced him not to try to attack NOW, but according to this disk, what he'll most likely do is try to form a giant syndicate of his own and THEN attack. But so far, he hasn't done jack, so we can't send out the squads." The first agent complained. He wanted to go and assassinate Stomper, but since he had no personal dealings with him, he had no way to cover it up as a personal beef. Perhaps, he thought to himself, someone who does have a personal beef should be set up with what it takes to win...


Soon enough, Masher's communicator got a coded message from his double agent, warning him that the boss seemed like he might try to cook up an extralegal action.

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

Remediator was shocked at the revelation that MasterBlaster might have a serious glitch. "You'd better go right away," he said. "Memory errors can consume your entire mind, and if that happens, you're a goner!"

As MasterBlaster walked towards the Debugging Center, he passed a huge group of kids going the other way. In the middle, SolarStorm was strutting along as the bot of honor. They were going to the Raid Games Emporium to do the originally-suggested paintball battle at the suggestion of the chaperones after having become bored with playing video games.

A friendly-seeming bot walked up to MasterBlaster right about then, and said, "go ahead and let him have fun today, but remember, he needs to go to Debugging to have his sapience confirmed and check its level." When MasterBlaster looked over, he saw that it was an overt DomIntel agent. The agent chuckled a bit at the look of surprise. "No need to worry; he's not a 'subject of interest.' But we can't miss it when someone gets all over the radio and tells everyone he knows that it's his Sapience Day, and when that happens, we routinely pull the records. His show that he hasn't been Certified Sapient, which means that he needs to have that happen. But like I said, go ahead and let him have fun today. Nobody wants to remember their first Sapience Day as a day they had to sit in Debugging and be bored." He smiled, congratulated MasterBlaster on coding someone who became sapient twice as fast as the average Meltdown, and walked off into the crowd.