An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Vallermoore]

Sing-King

Given just who Loyal Star had been preaching to, Megatron thought the preaching was good enough. Unknown to Loyal Star, several of the guards were extremely angry with him for bringing what they saw as interfering goody-goody human rights types sniffing around and decided to beat the heck out of him with batons. However strong he was, six of them should be able to deal with him. Unknown to them, however, by chance Megatron was looking in, and decided to give his assistant priest a bit of help rather then let biologicals send him to the hospital. He rarely gave anyone direct help in combat but rarely was not the same as never. The six guards drew their batons. "This is what you get for trying to act like you're the law around here, boy! Arrrrrrggghh!!!" The " Arrrrrrggghh!" was caused by the batons suddenly becoming too hot to hold as divine power heated them up. They then tried to kick and punch him, only to get a nasty shock each time, allowing Loyal Star to knock them all out with his metal fists and feet, although he stopped short of murder or permanent damage, which would get him permanent solitary confinement or the death penalty for sure. When the last one was unconscious, Loyal Star gave a quick but heartfelt prayer of thanks to his God, who was clearly on his side.

Convicts had seen what happened and guessed it must mean he had divine help, and the whole prison would very soon know at least a garbled version of it, greatly strengthening belief in Megatronism. As for Loyal Star he decided he would stay behind bars for however long it took to earn his Full Priest stripes, whatever happened, short of his body somehow being outright killed which would boot him back to a spare on Cybertron.

******
The bots of the Genocide Battalion were soon bright eyed and happy again as they went about their work with glee. This was worth only having short periods of leave for (as otherwise they might genocide those who were firm allies of the Decepticons or bring an unwanted war on Cybertron.)

When the war was formally over and victory declared, MasterBlaster did a victory roll now that it was safe to do so and there was much cheering from every bot. Then the civilian gangs rapidly split up before it became legal fifteen minutes after the war was over for them to fight each other once more, unless they wanted to do that. Most didn't. The Military herded the survivors into slave cages, with three special ones. One was for all the Galactipol leaders who had been taken alive, and one was for forty or so Megatronists who were Megatronists before the invasion begun, who the Priests of Megatron had picked out with special optics, five of who were sapient ponies. They had kept the faith all alone on a planet that hated them and risked their lives in doing so, and deserved for their loyalty a fate much better then forced mine slavery. Megatron didn't believe in punishing that kind of loyalist without a good reason for doing it. Just being in the path of the Decepticon Military invading somewhere was not seen as a good reason. The third was for diplomats of pro Decepticon or neutral nations and those citizens who could prove their nationality of said nations.

Yellowstone

Venables dragged himself out of the gully looking for a safe place to sleep and undressed himself, leaving the wet clothes in the sun where they dried-and shrank.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Sing King

Once word of the guards being "savagely beaten by an out-of-control inmate" got to the warden, there was celebration in his office. He finally had an excuse to offload this anti-law preacher guy, preferably to the country's Supermax, while his own prison would soon pacify the civil rights people and then get back to how it was usually run! With great haste, he prepared charges and filed them with the prosecutor's office. In the meantime, he sent other guards to get Loyal Star and throw him into solitary. "So much for Megatronism!" the warden thought to himself.

The solitary confinement cell was pitch dark - another civil rights violation - and left that way 24/7. It didn't take long for Loyal Star to hear the patter of rats' feet around him. At first, being in the dark made him imagine that the beasts were huge. Then, remembering that his body was not really organic when it came to what made it actually run, Loyal Star tested to see if he had night vision optics. Sure enough, he was instantly able to see quite well. The first thing he noticed was that the rats were only of average size. Then, he saw marks on the walls that seemed to have been made by humans clawing them and ponies kicking them. Were people left in here to die?

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

It turned out that people had, at times, indeed been left in there to die. In fact, it seemed that the guards had that fate in mind for him! They had delivered no food or water, and days passed with no change in that status. A full biological would have been dead or almost so by the time the cell door opened again. Fortunately, Loyal Star's android body kept running fine. Its fleshy components were kept hydrated from an internal reservoir, which would be refilled the next time he had a chance to drink.

When the cell door opened, it had been 4 days - long enough to kill most biologicals. To the guards' surprise, they still had an inmate to deal with, and one who seemed to be in strapping good health at that. "It's about time!" Loyal Star complained. He kept it to himself, but intended to file a complaint about the conditions in solitary, too.

"You won't be so glad when you find out where you're going!" One of the guards said smugly. "Once your new trial takes place, it's off to the Supermax with you! Then you can try preaching to the four walls, because that's all you'll ever see again!" They pulled him from the cell roughly, and after only a short stop near the exit for some water, they put him in the wagon.

~~~~~~~~~~

The "trial," if it could be called that, was very perfunctory. After being convicted of attempted murder of the six guards, whose false story was treated as if it was above challenge, Loyal Star was sentenced to spend the many decades of time he had accumulated in the Supermax. He was bound in heavy chains and made to drag a 35-lb iron ball as they put him on a prison bus. Inside, he took a seat among several extremely dangerous and possibly-insane convicts who were bound for the same destination.

Loyal Star quickly sent prayers informing Megatron what was going on. Whether the Divine Leader had planned for him to be on a bus yet or not, it was surely meant to be his last ride. If he was successfully put into the Supermax, the only non-miraculous way out would be to escape by sheer brute force.

~~~~~~~~~

Arcturus

Once the bare sand raid was declared, the planet was subjected to a level of gleaning efficiency that few had ever imagined. Unlike the slave-worked worlds, where it was okay if it took hundreds of years to clear them out, this one was subject to a horde of proper robotic laborers. The troops returned from Cybertron after resupply and repairs, and thousands of the most minor raid gangs came back as well. A few of the big gangs, including the ICC and the Cybertronian Business Association, returned as well. These powerful groups soon seized the best areas that the Military hadn't taken for itself.

Meanwhile, the slaves were put into specially-equipped, but still grumbling, cargo-bots. They were taken to an offworld processing center, where they were routinely sterilized and given a jab that would convert their DNA to that of the Approved Codec for their relevant species. Those of unknown species were sent to Earth instead, where they became subjects of the Biological Research Division.

Once the humans and ponies were processed, they were split up and sent to a variety of resource worlds. The weaker ones were sent to farming planets, while the rest went to the mines. Those who seemed unable to work were sent to rendering, though this was done after the others were gone so as to not interfere with the other slaves' productivity.

Back on Arcturus, the Megatronists were offered the chance to move to protected areas on Earth or Equestria. Arcturus, Megatron told them, would soon have nothing left on it to support life. "Others must see just how much destruction befalls those who actively oppose the Decepticon Nation," he rumbled. "The bare sand raid will chill such opposition in this sector for centuries to come."

Just before the raiders returned, the nationals of non-hostile planets were picked up by ships from their respective countries. To Megatron's surprise, a few of the incoming officials - sent to verify the identities of their nations' people - congratulated him. One even said outright that he hoped the Decepticons would utterly destroy Galactipol. It turned out that his nation saw Galactipol as a bully and extortionist. "Perhaps once they are gone, we can set up some deals with your...major Corpa'rations?" The diplomat hinted, not realizing that The Corpa'ration was no longer operating in Decepticon territory.

"That organization has been, shall we say...de-licensed," Megatron responded. "However, I'm sure that you'll find many similar ones who are eager to deal with you as long as your offer is acceptable to them." He smiled, always glad to see more opportunities for those who were the best practitioners of the Decepticon Way.

Just as the military and raiders were returning and began their work of taking literally everything but the sand of this planet - this time with truly machine-like efficiency - he got the notice from Loyal Star. He cursed to himself; he'd wanted Loyal Star to be able to get the official version of Megatronism to everyone in that prison! "Oh well," he thought. " 'No plan survives contact with the enemy.' " Loyal Star's activities, and his victory against those guards, had brought in thousands of new faithful. Now, it was time to extricate the priest, and bring him back to Cybertron.

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

Yellowstone

Venables woke up to clothes that were anywhere from a little to a lot smaller than they used to be. His socks and long underwear were total losses; being made of wool, they had shrunk to doll-size. The shirt, made of cotton, was still wearable. In fact, stretching it back to fit would be as simple as getting it wet again, putting it on, and letting it dry while wearing it. His pants, alas, were too thick for that trick, and he could no longer get the zipper up after attempting to put them on.

Of course, nobody was around to care about it if he just went nude. The Decepticons certainly wouldn't. In fact, they thought it was completely stupid to cover an "evaporative cooling system" with anything that would prevent said evaporation. The sun in this area, however, would soon burn any part that usually wasn't exposed but was suddenly kept that way on a constant basis. Venables was also at risk of getting blisters from his boots since his feet weren't used to wearing them sockless.

After storming around in a few circles cursing his bad luck, his attention was drawn to some motion on the side of the cliffs. A wild goat was there, watching him closely. This meant that there had to be some sort of grass or other edible (by animals, at least) material nearby. Of course, the goat itself could also be used as food if he could get it. In fact, goat meat used to be one of the most popular types on this planet. He realized that after having lost his big food stock to the wild humans, he would find it worthwhile to try to replenish that supply, the clothing issue aside...

[Vallermoore]

Sing King

Whilst the warden might think he had fully purged Megatronism from his prison, the Loyal Star gang and Navigator was still there and in fact all he had done was drive Megatronism deep underground. It was certainly weakened; but it was still there, ready to re-emerge given the chance.

When Loyal Star was picked up and thrown into the dark cell, at first he was genuinely frightened. Then he turned on his Bravery Up and to his delight was also able to turn on his night vision optics. Android bodies on undercover missions were never weak. There were rats, but they were no real threat to him. Disturbingly, there were punch and hoof marks and splotches of human and pony blood on the walls. Day after day passed with no food and more to the point, no water, but Loyal Star's android body could last for two weeks before it's internal reservoir ran out, and it's power source could last at least that long if not longer. Expecting to find an inmate who had died of thirst, the guards were surprised to find Loyal Star was unharmed. "It's about time."

"You won't be so glad when you find out where you're going! Once your new trial takes place, it's off to the Supermax with you! Then you can try preaching to the four walls, because that's all you'll ever see again!" After some water, Loyal Star was chained up complete with an iron ball and put on a bus with the worst of the worst not counting those on death row or dead and rotting in their prison graves. He quickly sent up a prayer to Megatron asking if he was to be brought out by a fake death, and if not, what Megatron wanted him to do next. He could hardly be any use spending 23 hours a day in a tiny one man cell after all.

Arcturus

With the surviving inhabitants either enslaved or rendered by the Genocide Battalion, the five Megatronist ponies and two humans chose Equestria and the other humans chose Earth, where there would be in effect little reservations where within those boundaries slavers would be banned from targeting them. Being a Megatronist on Arcturus before it was taken over had been highly dangerous after all and was not something done lightly.

As for the neutral or friendly diplomats and foreign nationals, killing, rendering or enslaving them would damage relations with those planets for no good reason, so they could get ships from their nations to take them back home. Some, including a pony diplomat from Vallermoore, were pleased to see the end of Arcturus and the partial destruction of Galactipol.

Yellowstone

Venable's curse words were anything but PG13. Whilst he had not lost his weapons or his boots, his socks and underwear would now fit a teddy bear or a doll, his trousers would not do up (although his belt worked ok) and his shirt was one size too small. Seeing the goat he decided to try and stalk and shoot it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Bus from Sing King

There was no overt response from Megatron, and for many miles, the bus rolled along without event. Inside, the prisoners were uncharacteristically talkative. They knew that where they were going, it might as well be the end of the line. Might as well talk now, while they still could. Once inside the Supermax, there would be nobody to talk to but the TV, and all that showed was a small selection of State-approved propaganda PSAs.

Suddenly, once they were in the middle of nowhere, there was a loud POP. Everyone was about to assume that a tire blew, but suddenly, the bus skidded out of control. Before long, it had tipped.

Chaos immediately ensued inside the bus, but it was a directed chaos. Almost immediately, the confused guards were overtaken by the prisoners, who were more used to things going in unplanned ways and therefore recovered from the surprise first. The 35 pounds of chain that once kept them in line became their weapons, and they beat the guards either unconscious or to death - they didn't stop to be sure. Along with the guards, the driver suffered the same fate. He had the keys to the chains, and they weren't about to let him run off with them.

As the now-unchained prisoners fled the bus through its windows, they didn't look back for even a second. They found themselves out in a wild field that stretched as far as the eye could see, and after some discussion, chose the direction opposite of the one the bus had been going in. That way, at least, was away from the prison they were supposed to be taken to.

Still in the bus, amongst the dead and severely wounded, one prisoner remained. He appeared to be dead...

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

Asilan Correctional System Regional Office

"We've lost the Supermax bus," an underling reported to the regional supervisor. "Six guards were aboard, and two were killed along with the driver. The other four are in intensive care."

"What? How?"

"There was an accident, and the prisoners took the element of surprise to get a jump on them. Then, they beat them to death with their 35 pounds of Blackjack County chain."

"Damn that stupid county insisting on us using chains on prisoners going through their jurisdiction! If we just took them like usual, that couldn't have happened! And I suppose those animals are now out there running free."

"Yes, sir. All but one escaped. But there's nothing but fields for 20 miles around. We have our choppers on the way to look for them now. They have thermal cameras, so we'll find them even if they try to hide."

"All but one, huh? I suppose it's some coward who's saying he tried to stop the escape, and will be bothering our courts for clemency because of that!" The supervisor spat with aggravated disgust.

"Actually no, sir. He was found dead. Apparently he hit his head in just the wrong way."

"Oh really?" The chief correctional officer beamed with obvious joy. One less scumbag to house! "And which one of these losers was it that we no longer need to deal with?"

"Prisoner 8923850. 'Loyal Star.'" He said the name as if it had to be fake.

At this news, the chief turned to a locked cabinet, opened it, and withdrew a bottle of aged whiskey. He then poured out two glasses.

"Cheers," he said. "I am very glad to hear that we won't be dealing with any more 'miraculous' jailbreaks or weird severed legs appearing in our cells while nobody is missing a leg. I never thought I'd say this about mere criminal scum, but that had to be the creepiest creature I ever got word of."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Mansion

Leader Megatron arrived home tired, but feeling wonderful. The invasion of Arcturus had gone excellently despite its strength, and his generals had made the right decisions both during and after the fighting ended. Now, it would be mere months before its surface was devoid of life and the obelisk was up, though it would take a few years to get all of the mineables out of it. Robots would do the work this time - mere biologicals could not, in actuality, work nearly as fast. These bots would almost all be military since he could just order troops to do it, but he would also hire anyone who was willing. He knew that hiring would provide only a fraction of the needed labor, though, so he planned on sending at least a million soldiers to do the bulk of it.

Over on another mind-thread, Megatron watched as the prisoners left the bus without even checking to see if everyone from their own ranks was okay. Loyal Star's body was, so far, undiscovered by everyone except for a person the Supermax had sent out to see why the bus hadn't arrived there. Meanwhile, Loyal Star's mind had made it back to ForIntel Headquarters without a hitch. After a check by Debugging to make sure he hadn't gotten any glitches from his environment, he would be debriefed.

The two ponies who had played along in order to bring the first set of charges had already returned to Cybertron and were back at their respective Temples.

Meanwhile, Navigator was found "dead" in Foalsom Prison, apparently of a stroke. It was no surprise that the weak-looking "human," whose body showed the wear caused by years of hard drug use, had finally perished from the effects of his apparent lifestyle. His body was buried in an unmarked grave in the prisoners' cemetery - in the guards' view, he was just another nameless failure lost to the system.

Of course, Navigator was also just fine in reality, and his Cybertronian body roared to joyous life as his mind entered it and was detected by its security system. He was certainly glad to be out of there! Unlike Loyal Star's mission, his was boring. All he could do was be unobtrusive and observe. He would be checked just like Loyal Star, and then give the "outsider's perspective" on how the operation went.

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

Foalsom Prison

Once Loyal Star's body was recovered by the police, the warden at this prison wasted no time in announcing his death and making cracks about how Megatron hadn't saved him. To his dismay, this did nothing to weaken Megatronism. The Megatronists quickly pointed out to each other how there wasn't a mark on that body and said that he surely had mind-transferred back to Cybertron instead.

The warden wanted to order an autopsy - if that body wasn't dead now, it would be after that! Plus, he would learn what was really under that skin. Unfortunately for him, the regional chief had other ideas about the prisoner that he thought was "creepy." He had already had the body incinerated, and thanks to some secret help from Megatron, it had burned completely to ashes without leaving any obvious metal parts. If someone had analyzed the ashes, they would find them full of extra-finely-ground steel dust - but nobody did. The ashes were chucked out with those from the Supermax's garbage (which was what this incinerator usually handled), buried in a dump, and never looked at again. Records were fudged to indicate proper burial just in case anybody came out of the woodwork to care.

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

Yellowstone

Venables took aim at the goat, but thanks to his cold and now ill-fitting clothes, his aim was off. The bullet landed close enough to the animal to spook it, and it dashed up over the side of the gully.

"What's wrong? Did somebody shoot at you? Just stay right there, and I'll take care of THAT!" The voice sounded surprisingly human. There was just one problem: The words were in Binary. Venables would have to make himself scarce fast!

Soon enough, he could hear the sound of footsteps. The gait was also that of a human, with steps much shorter than that of a Decepticon in his standard body. Unfortunately, this meant that the person was likely a ForIntel agent who stopped off at Earth to relax in his "field" android body before reporting in.

Only a minute later, the chase was on. Venables scrambled out of his side of the gully with a newfound burst of adrenaline, overpowering his cold. Behind him, he heard a splash and then swimming noises. It was surely a ForIntel agent out to make sure nobody continued to bother the actually-wild goat he had taken a shine to.

~~~~~~~~~~

Coltan

It had now been quite a while since the Invasion, and the chaos of the transition had all but subsided. As Megatron's forces promised, the planet was - on the whole - much better off than it had been under King Coal and even a bit better than under Masher. Now, another historic day was about to come. It had mustered its first squadron of "Decepticon-thinking" military volunteers. These volunteers wouldn't be given any assignments that would be even remotely critical, just in case they were actually backstabbing saboteurs, but they would be allowed to fly in an upcoming invasion. This attack, they had been told, would be against one of the other Galactipol planets. The planet in question had been constantly railing about "Decepticon barbarism" on its media since Arcturus lost, and was about to taste that barbarism for itself.

This invasion wouldn't be happening quite yet, though. The Decepticon Military had to rest, repair, and resupply after their war against Arcturus, and the Coltanis still needed more training. Even so, this day would be one of awe and import, for Great Leader Megatron himself was going to pay a visit and observe the aerial "march" of the First Coltani Professional Military Squadron of the Decepticon Military.

[Vallermoore]

Bus from Sing King

The prisoners, both human and pony, chatted a lot, and the guards were not cruel enough to gag them or beat them for chatting, as where they were going, the cells were soundproof and they would never see another person again, with the exception of their one hour a day exercise in small cages that were next to each other. They would have a TV, but it just showed propaganda and My Little Pony cartoons, and only had three hours a day of programming anyway. Loyal Star decided that if he was sent to the Supermax, he would use his blasters to escape or if that was impossible, he would radio High Priest Warfire and ask for permission to mind transfer back to Cybertron. Just then the bus flipped over and he mind transferred and sent his data transfer packets pinging back to Cybertron. His body, that had been kept safe by Forintel for when he returned from his mission, roared back into life and he grinned. He hoped he had been a success as then he would have earned the stripes of a Full Priest, and Fire Eater would be so proud that he had got that far. Without Fire Eater he would still be a pony and most likely a homeless, jobless one. A marked Forintel Agent ordered him to report for a medical check by Debugging in case he had been left mentally damaged from his mission, and then to report for debriefing.

As it turned out, his mind boards had remarkably few problems to fix, and then he told Forintel everything that they wanted to know. Afterwards Fire Eater radioed him, telling him that he and High Priest Warfire wished to see him in the Main Temple. Soon enough he was invited into the High Priest's private study. As well as Warfire, Fire Eater was there.

*****
Yellowstone

The human voice Venables heard was speaking perfect Binary-and the goat was this bot's pet! Cursing to himself, Venables decided to run and hide, as his gun would only have a limited impact on even an android Decepticon body. Whilst it might be possible to deactivate an android body by shooting the joints, he didn't fancy his chances.

Coltan

Things had improved, and Coltan was far more Cybertronian in character since every bot had been one-off upgraded at the same time to give every bot a reasonable chance to have a good life. What was once crime had been legalized except of course for treason and every bot had received a Treason File in their upgrade. It would be unfair after all to execute someone for breaking a law that they had no idea at all even existed. The new Military now had it's first properly trained regiment, with, for now, Decepticon trainers and commanders. As time went on however, Coltanis would be promoted to at least the trainer ranks, as things would be more stable that way and military service would be less unpopular. More then one Coltani had been clouted or spent time under the control of a military hack virus doing unpleasant tasks. Generally clouting came first, rather then severe punishment at once. Coltanis, unlike Decepticons, did not normally spend their first day in a state of de facto mutiny, and in that way were a pleasure to train.

Some Coltanis had hoped they would have their own military in time under Coltani generals, but on their first day of training, High General Thundercracker had spoken to them. "Coltanis! Just because for now most of the regiment is Coltani, do not get any nationalist ideas of the wrong kind in your mind boards! This regiment and any others that may be formed in the future is part of the Decepticon military and will when fully trained be stiffened and mixed with enough loyal Decepticons to put down any mutiny. Any Coltani who earns a promotion chance to trainer, let alone any higher, must submit to a code read first to weed out the would-be traitors, no exceptions. You lost your full independence for good the day that many of you thought that raiding the Metal Planet of all places would be a good idea. We realized you were led into it by the machinations of Masher, and you gave in without fighting and so avoided death or enslavement, but that does not mean that Coltan will ever be an independent planet again. No planet that joins us, be it willingly, semi-willingly, or by force, is ever allowed to be free again. You will all now swear the military oath of loyalty to our great Leader Megatron." The glow in his red eyes and the way his engine was running empathised that he very much meant what he said.

Vallermoore

President Clever One was sitting with his cabinet, half of which were humans and the other half sapient ponies like himself. His pony ministers as loyal Decepticons had Decepticon Seal cutie marks like his own, that although they were fur shone in the sunlight like Decepticon Steel. He had something that was so important he thought he should ask them what they thought, just like if an issue was important enough Megatron would talk with his own High Generals about it. "At the moment, the Vallermooreian Military swears loyalty not to me but to Queen Yocasta. Should we, one way or another, legally or otherwise, remove the monarch and get them to swear loyalty to me? Or would trying to do that cause more problems then it would solve? Yocasta stays out of politics and is personally popular with many of all classes in our nation."

[Victorious Decepticons]

First Temple of Megatron, Cybertron
The meeting with High Priest Warfire and Fire Eater was celebratory, but also very professional. It was an extremely important moment, and the main message could not be lost in too much cheering and frivolity.

"You did exceptionally well when you weren't under direct supervision," Warfire told Loyal Star. "Navigator's reports were all glowing, showing how you managed to turn several situations to your favor and to the glory of Megatron and his religion. Not only that, we've received word from Megatron himself that several guards at Foalsom and Sing King are now secretly following his religion and have recognized him as a god. He will be sending them messages that, as guards and representatives of their country's legal system, they are currently in a state of extreme heresy. Megatron expects that over 90% of those claiming allegiance will go ahead and quit their guard jobs to rectify this. Of course, that's only about 25% of the total guard population, but if they all do it at once and without warning - as Megatron will command them to - it could be enough to provide an opportunity for the imprisoned Decepticons-in-Spirit to stage a jailbreak. We fully expect Foalsom to lose several of its prisoners, though Sing King will likely be able to maintain its security - unless, of course, someone decides to open the doors on his way out..."

"Already," Warfire went on, "Megatronism is spreading wildly outside of the confines of Foalsome. Prisoners who have been released due to their sentences being served have brought it to criminal areas all over its jurisdiction zone. We're seeing nearly 100% conversion in certain neighborhoods, and open practicing in many others." He activated a switch, and a hidden screen on the wall was revealed. On it, the Asilan Federation was shown in two main colors: That of the local pagan religion, and the red of Megatronism. In one area, the red pulsed strongly. "This is the place we have in its entirety. We'll be sending a standing Priest there to establish the First Temple of Megatronism in the Federation of Asila."

Warfire was clearly excited as he laid out his plans, and eagerly pointed to various cities on the map as he talked.

"Anyway, back to you! Your work in this matter was instrumental in getting an intractable foothold in this new nation. All of the reports about you were stellar. The Divine Leader did say you needed some sort of correction, but does not hold it against you considering how many thousands of new followers he already has. You even managed to convert the assistant warden of Foalsom as well as the thousands of overt loyalists in Sing King! It will take longer to see Megatronism spread outside of Sing King thanks to those inmates' longer sentences, but it will happen."

"All of that said, it's time to deliver the news: You have been accepted as a Full Priest of Megatronism with a focus on missionary work."

There was a moment's pause given to acknowledge the importance of this pronouncement.

"You will be officially ascended to your new rank next week here at the Main Temple during the already-scheduled ceremony, which will happen instead of the usual Wednesday evening service. Arrive here two hours before the service so that you can get your Priestly Stripe painted on down in the basement. The Stripe's swirling will, as before, be activated during the ceremony. You will be blessed by Divine Leader Megatron himself along with several others who have gained their promotions. Remember to keep a solemn and stoic face during this ceremony, in keeping with the gravitas your new position deserves."

With that, Warfire concluded his comments.

Fire Eater quickly congratulated Loyal Star. He then reminisced about his own ascension, giving tips about the specifics of how the ceremony would proceed as he did so.

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

Yellowstone

This Decepticon android was even stronger than Loyal Star had been, with full metal underlayment and complete bulletproofing. His undercover mission had been to serve as a bodyguard to a controversial foreign diplomat, and he needed to endure not only bullets, but car bombs. While on duty, his "bulletproof vest" was given credit for saving his life, but in reality, it was the armored nature of his body itself that did the serious work. He had finally "been caught" with a female escort (after making sure to be seen walking with her by someone with a camera) and was fired - the perfect way to extricate himself from his placement when the time came without arousing suspicions about his real secret. The diplomat, alas, was found dead of "suicide" in his garage just days later - the target of another, never seen, ForIntel professional. Now that all of his secrets had been milked, it was not strategic to leave the diplomat online and give him time to think about any strange quirks his bodyguard might have let slip.

Now, after all of this, he had come to Earth to relax and feed his pet goat some grass pellets, and some lousy wild human had taken a shot at it! Even worse, he couldn't find that puny human now. He looked high and low, and back and forth, only to see nothing.

Meanwhile, Venables hid in the tall grass, thankful that this very human-looking android didn't have thermal vision. As long as he stayed as well-hidden as he was, and didn't give himself away by moving or making noise, he would probably be able to evade this pursuer. This type of ForIntel agent was trained for evading high-level detection by governments, not for doing basic tracking of this nature.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Mansion

Leader Megatron held up a small chunk of low-grade steel and let the light play off of it. The ashes of Arcturus' leaders were mixed into it, and there were enough to count as a significant amount of contaminants in the metal from a purely technical standpoint - thereby lowering its grade. To Megatron, however, this combination was much more than this: It was the Victory Ingot that was forged even as the coals of the fire of war still glowed on Arcturus.

After looking at it for quite some time, enjoying the sense of pride that always came with a victory, he placed it into its cabinet. There, several other special ingots already had positions. Ones from Coltan, Beauty, and several other planets were lined up on display, and in the middle, the larger Ingot of Prime memorializing the Decepticons' greatest win.

Several blank spaces were prominently showing in this cabinet. All of them already had plaques and were just waiting for their Victory Ingots. A closer look revealed that these were reserved for tokens from the other major members of Galactipol.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Planet Schwang
A Large Member of the Galactipol Federation

Several foreign hovercrafts were parked outside of a highly-fortified government building far from the capital city. Inside, high-ranking diplomats discussed just one thing: How to stop the Decepticons from destroying the rest of the Galactipol alliance. Many ideas were bandied about, ranging from paying tribute to committing mass suicide as a final protest to Decepticon domination. When the discussions were completed, however, all had become firmly convinced that there was but one rational course of action: Total war against the Empire of Victorious Decepticons. Only that would put a decisive end to the conflict, and only through that could they say, even if they lost, that they had tried their best to preserve themselves and their way of life.

Though a few planets had lost their advance fleets to the Decepticon raiders, they would - they hoped - now have time to properly plan an offensive. They would also have time to gather their ships together into one big megafleet and do the same with their war resources. Finally, they hoped, they would not have the entire Decepticon Military concentrating on one of their planets. Instead, they would mount their own attack as soon as possible, and to make it harder on Decepticon logistics, they would hit one of the outlying planets: Decepticon Earth. They would, they planned, attempt to seize this planet with a minor force in hopes that the Decepticon Empire would send its full military there. After that, Galactipol would move onto the next part of its plan - at least, if all went the way it hoped.

[Vallermoore]

First Temple of Megatron, Cybertron

Both High Priest Warfire and Fire Eater were pleased with Loyal Star, who couldn't help giving a little (little by Decepticon standards, to humans it would be a fifty foot jump in the air) jump of joy and a happy rev when he found out about his success, his eyes as bright as polished rubies. He had gone through so much to reach this point. He had abandoned Ponyism in such a way that he was excommunicated, left his parents, and traveled far to reach Fire Eater. Lots of study and minor jobs as an acolyte had followed, and never had he once faltered or balked. Then he had passed the paper test for immigration, survived the survival test, and gone through a lot of physical pain to be downloaded into a Decepticon body. He had served his first conscription stint, and had many other adventures including winning a duel against a Full Priest with very different ideas. He had brought his God back to the land of the living and whilst for obvious reasons that was a secret, his unprecedented double Gold Stripe was not. If he had still been a sapient pony, his tail would have been twitching madly all over the place.

Megatronism was now rapidly spreading all over the area. Unofficial for now (as there were no open Decepticon clergy to run them yet, not even one) were opening in many areas. To Loyal Star's surprise the deputy warden of Foalsom Prison was now a converted Megatronist, which caused a backfire of shock from his engine as he had never expected that.

"I'll need to keep my freeze-face program running during the ceremony," Loyal Star said. He switched it on and off a couple of times to test it and to his relief it worked perfectly. Loyal Star and Fire Eater decided to go to Loyal Star's house and there have a celebratory drink of Energon Supreme and chat together. There were Priestly Secrets that Loyal Star was yet to be told which were now open to him.

*****
Yellowstone

After a long while the Forintel agent left with his goat and Venables knew he had to find food one way or another and quickly before he became too weak and starved to death.

Megatron Mansion

Megatron's engine was purring with pleasure at this moment as he looked at his new trophy. This was one of the moments that he really loved being a Decepticon, who even if he was not a God would still be immensely strong and powerful.

Planet Schwang

After much thought, the Galactipol leaders decided to try and take over Decepticon Earth as a direct strike at the Metal Planet would send the entire Decepticon population at them. None of them wanted to suffer Equestria's fate.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Loyal Star's Mansion

Loyal Star and Fire Eater first realized something was wrong as they approached from the air. Several pieces of the mansion's structural steel were gone along with the back door and a couple of windows, exposing the darkness of the interior. The two soon landed, Loyal Star with alarm and Fire Eater with a notable shrug-like attitude. Fire Eater was quite used to the Decepticon Way and wasn't at all surprised that there were signs of one or more break-ins. In fact he was only surprised that the entire house hadn't been sold to the foundries piece-by-piece after so much time left unattended!

Without stopping to talk, Loyal Star barged in with his blasters ready. Almost immediately, he nearly tripped on the deactivated, partially-melted carcass of one of the robber's bodies, which had been hit by a hidden fusion cannon. He jumped over the thing and proceeded to do a military-style room-by-room clearing of the house.

In many of the rooms, there were either deactivated robber bodies or the scorch marks that were all that remained of the smaller scout-type ones. However, the most important rooms - the one containing the safe and the workshop - had been successfully burgled. There were many scorch marks, indicating that some robbers had lost at least one body before someone finally succeeded at getting the most obviously-valuable loot. Scrape marks showed that once this was eventually managed, the successful thieves had taken the carcasses of the failures from these rooms - a bit of bonus scrap for their efforts.

Finally, Loyal Star made it to his private temple area. As soon as he entered, the head of the Statue of Megatron swiveled around, its eyes glowing as if alive. Once it recognized him, it returned to its normal statue-looking state. All around it, fusion-cannoned thief bodies were scattered like so many giant pieces of junk. It was clear that switching its model fusion cannon for a real one and setting up a minor automatic defense routine had been an excellent move.

In the study, there were no signs of tampering. No one had made it past the final obstacle of the Statue in the adjoining room.

"Your defenses held up pretty well considering how long these guys had to work on it," Fire Eater remarked as he entered the big temple room. He gave the Statue a little bow. "They say that sometimes, Megatron puts a bit of his spirit into these statues, especially the big ones. While it's clear that he did not become a full security force for you, I do wonder if the thieves who came in this room got a bit more than they were bargaining for." The statue stood still and lifeless, neither confirming or denying the speculation in any way.

"It's clear that we won't be having any Energon right now except what we normally keep on us," Fire Eater continued. Let's fuel up, and then one of us will need to go to the construction supply store and get some replacement panels, doors, and windows for the back door. You should probably make the trip since you have access to your vaults. I'll stay and give anyone else that bothers to attempt to get in a big surprise."

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

Carjack Agriculture, Earth

General Carjack came in from space at an easy angle and made his way towards the flower fields. It had been a great war, against an enemy that actually could provide the exhilaration of a challenge, but now it was over. Like the other High Generals, he had gone away from the Main Base to rest and enjoy the afterglow of victory. Repairs and resupplies didn't need any high commanders for supervision. It was all basic work, and frankly, boring.

As he passed over the Yellowstone area, he got a wave from what was clearly an off-duty ForIntel agent. Off in the distance, he also noticed what was clearly a real human. The human looked quite the worse for wear, with ill-fitting clothes and a panicked expression. It quickly hid when he heard the roar of Carjack's jets, not realizing that Carjack had the full suite of detection upgrades and could still see him plainer than day. Carjack circled around and came almost to the ground, his metal belly touching the tall grasses as he flew within mere feet of this supposedly-hiding man. "I seeee you," he taunted through his speakers before he regained altitude.

Venables looked up in terror only to see the headframe-and-wrenches symbols Carjack was now flashing as he flew just high enough to avoid frying the obvious Survival Test candidate with his jetfire. Now, Venables could also see Carjack's General's stripes and realized he was looking at none other than the Genocider himself. Would he come around again to add another skull to his already overly-etched blaster barrels? Or was he just having some fun?

The human exhaled with relief when finally, Carjack regained proper flying altitude and disappeared into the distance. This relief, however, did not last long. He knew that the display might attract the other Decepticon, who clearly had thought he was worth actively hunting. Now, he looked for a cave or other shelter where he could hide better just in case that ForIntel agent decided to come looking for him again.

~~~~~~~~

The one thing in Venables' favor was that he was really in no danger of starvation despite his fears of it. Like most humans, he underestimated his body's energy storage capabilities. Thanks to his prior time of hunting with ease, he could make it another month, if need be, before he actually became skeletal and in serious danger of running out of the energy needed to function. Fat storage was an ability that was both a blessing and a curse for humans, for under normal conditions, it meant that they could easily overload themselves with spare fuel. Now, however, the ability to store fat was doing what caused it to become so entrenched in the Human Codec in the first place: making him very famine-resistant.

~~~~~~~~~

Once at the flower fields, Carjack circled around several times to enjoy the verdant beauty of the plants. The bougainvilleas had just gone out of flower, and soon, it would be too hot for the marigolds. A few yellow-flowered vines - pretty to the uninitiated, but always eager to run rampant and grow over (and thereby kill) every other plant in their way while also producing seemingly-infinite seeds - were once again showing despite his constant attempts to eradicate them. Bad plants like the vines and verminous animals, alas, were far more resistant to his specialty than humans and ponies.

Carjack ignored the things and landed on the slightly-cushioned paved area that was there for this purpose and went inside the nearby house. It wasn't a big mansion, but instead, was intentionally made low-key in order to avoid attracting too much thievish attention. Still, there were a couple of rather powerful energy-cannon-firing AA batteries tastefully disguised nearby, just in case. The choice of ordnance and artillery was no fluke - unlike foreign AA batteries, these had more range than the typical mil-spec blaster. They could hit attacking Decepticons before the attackers could hit them, and since they were true military grade, their aiming systems were extremely good.

~~~~~~~~~~

Later that night, Carjack got a disconcerting feeling - the sensation of the area being watched by malevolent eyes. He blatantly went outside, blasters at the half-ready, just in case the viewer was closer than he expected. However, as he had thought, the sensation was quickly pinpointed to the sky. Soon, he had his telescopic optics activated as well as his anti-cloaking detection.

Way up in the air, he saw it: A scout ship. It was unmarked, but clearly not of Decepticon origin. Without a second thought, Carjack commanded his AA batteries to lock on and begin firing. He also fired his own blasters. Both he and the batteries made sure to calculate for where the ship was likely to be after the couple of seconds it took the lightspeed-fast blasts to get to nearby outer space, while the batteries made sure to aim at least one barrel at the ship's exact current position in case it chose not to move.

Even with this pattern, it was hard to hit something at that range because it could move into a spot the calculations hadn't figured for during the flight delay of the blasts. However, this time, the ship did not get lucky. With an impressive explosion, its foray came to an end.

Carjack went back inside, now pissed. Within just a few minutes, several members of the Decepticon Earth border patrol were reassigned to janitorial work. "Idiots should never have let that come this close!" he railed over the communicator. He then demanded an immediate deployment of 10,000 of his regulars to Earth. "That ship was the vanguard of something bigger," he remarked. "I can just tell it. Ready up and get over here as soon as you can!"

Within mere moments, Megatron, all of the other High Generals, and all of the trainers were on alert. Something was going on over at Earth. They all remembered how their last major defensive war against an actual military started with hostilities on Earth, and how it had soon moved to threaten Cybertron itself. At every Cybertronian base, soldiers now raced at top speed to get everything back to full ready. Readied-up battalions took positions on Cybertron and its nearby asteroids, while those not yet ready hurried to become so as soon as they could.

Almost immediately, the 10,000 troops Carjack had ordered were arriving in his area via FTL. This, however, would only be the first wave of defenders. Leader Megatron ordered another 5,000,000 to Earth, and upon arrival, they would fully staff the military bases that had been put there right after the War of the Great Slave Raid (where anti-slavers, which the Decepticons called mere "cattle rustlers," made off with millions of head). Earth might have been a fairly soft target once, but it would not be so again.

The strength and speed of the response had one big reason behind it: Megatron, and most of the other soldiers, figured that the scout ship was a sign that Galactipol was about to make a move. They were the most logical source of a military scout given the recent events, and they also had enough remaining planets to think that they might stand a chance.

Despite the Military's haste, no alarm was yet sounded to the general population. It could turn out that nothing special would happen now, and unless there was a clear sign of an impending invasion attempt - such as ships sighted or an official declaration of war - there was no point in getting everyone riled up. Plus, if the population flew off to Galactipol territory but the scout turned out to be from a different force, it would leave Cybertron dangerously underpopulated.

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

Over at Yellowstone, Venables was just finding a cave when he heard the roar of not just one jet, but thousands and thousands of them. The noise of sonic booms shook the land like earthquakes as the full mil-spec troops flew overhead in perfectly-regimented formations. Venables could only watch in awe as the might of the proper Decepticon Military arrived to what was, just moments before, a sleepy planet whose main sounds were bird chirps.

[Vallermoore]

Loyal Star's Mansion

When Loyal Star and Fire Eater arrived at Loyal Star's mansion, Loyal Star's eyes darkened and his engine ran very roughly for a while. Then he remembered that the looting of his mansion was partly just because of the Decepticon Way, and went from white hot rage to a more normal level of anger. Inside his security system had clearly turned a large number of would be looters into piles of busted scrap fit only for a foundry. It had not been enough. His tools and his safe with it's Energon was gone, but his study with it's fine Book of Megatron, it's map and it's statue was safe. He gave a polite bow to the statue. "Bang goes our celebration for now." With Fire Eater kindly agreeing to keep watch, Loyal Star was able to go to his vaults and buy the needed items for repair, and he was sure to take two Cubes of Energon Supreme as well for their later celebrity toast when they had the chance. Meanwhile whilst he was gone two would-be robber bots entered his mansion not knowing that Fire Eater was inside.

Yellowstone

Venables watched in awe as squadron after squadron of the Decepticon Military flew overhead. Luckily for him, these on duty troops were forbidden to break ranks and take slaves at this moment in time, as they could see him with their cameras that gave them a 360 degree view. Also, he was clearly a candidate for Decepticon citizenship rather then a foe, which was why he was not bombed or blasted from the air.

Earth

Not knowing that their scout ship had been discovered, a large Galactipol fleet of large craft with several flotillas of landing craft and fighters turned up near Earth. Their plan was to liberate as many slaves as possible and kill as many Decepticons as possible, and to try and take a Decepticon alive for interrogation. Unsure as to how the Decepticon body worked, they had only poorly made jammers, although their blasters were capable of cutting through all but the finest and most expensive Decepticon bodies. Perhaps, they thought, if they put enough pressure on the Decepticons, they could arrange terms with the piratical metal warriors. They also had other ideas, many of them very unlikely to succeed, including stealing a fully built unborn Decepticon baby and getting information from it. If they could somehow infiltrate Cybertron, partly built offspring were kept very safely by their Coders, mainly to stop any other Decepticons stealing them either to melt down or to bring up as their own offspring. Also, no biological would or could be recognised as a Coder even by a just-activated newborn. And even undiscovered traitors would not want to code a Decepticon to give him to a biological, any more then a human or a sapient pony would give their offspring willingly to intelligent ants.

Another idea was to assassinate a High General, something that would be near-impossible, as they had the most bodies, finest armour and fighting skills and were the most Decepticon of all Decepticons.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Earth

The sudden lack of transmissions from the Galactipol scout ship had, for some reason, not raised the right kinds of questions among the alliance's war planners. Instead, the enemy had focused on the images that had come in before the radio silence, which showed Earth as a sitting duck planet that was now mostly woods. It wasted no time in sending a fleet to attack, possibly rustle some human livestock, and attempt to deactivate a lot of Decepticons.

This fleet, to its surprise, did not find what it thought it would when it made its way closer to Earth. Its first warning was the hundreds of thousands of energy blasts that roared up to meet it - far more than could be accounted for by the number of SAM-like batteries their scout had detected. Even the previously-bucolic-looking Carjack Agriculture Flower Fields were ablaze with the fire of defending forces and energy cannon artillery. Many of Galactipol's advance ships, caught totally by surprise by the onslaught, were shot down without trouble.

Soon enough, those that had not yet gone into the fray realized that they were facing what seemed to be a full defensive force. They held back, waiting for the fleet's capital ship to show its power...

~~~~~~~~~~

Over in Yellowstone, the sky was just turning to dusk when it was suddenly ablaze with enough blaster fire to make it brighter than day. Venables wondered if Galactipol was the opponent, knowing that they surely had a big axe to grind.

"Now you see what the Decepticon Military is really for. Not for raiding, or really even invading places, but to deal with the blowback from it." The metallic voice came from behind, and Venables whipped around. His gun was already out - though he logically knew that a Decepticon would almost surely be bulletproof, his years of being human made the response automatic.

Once his initial shock subsided, he found himself looking at an android in plain articulated metal, but with eyes that looked like they could have been stolen from an actual human. The bot chuckled at Venables' obvious surprise. "I always ditch my skin-suit as fast as I can," he said. "They're far too clingy for me. But the eyes are built in, so I leave those." He came closer, showing the lack of caution of someone who is used to guns not being a threat. A slight drift of exhaust crossed Venables' nose. It was only very faintly noxious, and it was clear that this bot's engine was extremely efficient and clean.

"I'm with Esoteric Materials," he began to introduce himself. "We specialize in the procurement, transport, and resale of hard-to-get items. You may call me Bolo..." The name belonged to the "halfling god of thieves" of an old Earthian video game. While this bot was neither a halfling nor a god, he liked the concept of sneak-thievery this character represented. His organization, of course, actually specialized in high-class thievery and smuggling, so his street name was a good fit.

"I like to come to this rock after we do a big deal and draw some heat. Everybody runs and covers the route back to Cybertron, but nobody thinks of looking out here in the sticks." He referred to the entire planet Earth, which he considered very backwoods compared to home. "And I can see that you're on the Survival Test. You're looking quite fit, though your clothes and hair are quite a sight. I can only presume that you have had some sort of recent unfortunate event. And now, things are getting quite interesting here. But don't let the war bother you. It'll keep the natives' heads down. Some of them may even start to think we're gods, and we can convert them just like one of the other bow-and-arrow places in the universe. Hard to imagine that your species once ruled this rock, huh!"

Bolo slid open a panel in his thigh, and it was obvious that he was about to reveal contraband. "Did you ever wonder what it was really about? The Decepticon-Earth War?" Venables looked closer, and to his amazement, there was a DVD clearly marked The Transformers - Directed by Michael Bay, in English, inside the panel. "This baby is worth $10,000 NSD," Bolo said proudly, choosing not to mention the fact that spreading "the movie" was considered treason. "It wasn't easy getting a copy out of the Archives." The National Archives. To even gain access to the area of that building where the original of this thing would be stored would require heavy infiltration skills. It was much more likely that the disk was a complete fake that didn't hold the purported content at all - a circumstance that would also explain DomIntel's lack of interest in its possession or sale.

In the distance, booms began to be heard. Galactipol had gotten its big ship close enough to begin orbital bombardment, likely of a large military base. Decepticon engines could be heard roaring angrily upward from that general area in a swarm, like extremely pissed-off wasps from a shaken hive.

"We can play it safe and watch this, or you can stay out here and possibly become part of the latest show," Bolo said, indicating his so-called "movie." He clearly wasn't very bothered by the war heating up, most likely because he had several spare bodies somewhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Loyal Star's Mansion

As Loyal Star went to the store, he saw none other than Divine Leader Megatron leading his elite regiment across the sky. However, far from being a victory flight, it was clear that the formation was headed quickly off to war. Megatron's face looked grim in the instant Loyal Star saw it. The Leader was ready to do what he needed to, but he clearly wasn't pleased about this engagement.

Back at Loyal Star's mansion, Fire Eater's reading was interrupted by the quiet pad-pad sound of bots wearing sound-dampening foot treads He turned off the lights and shut down his own eye-lights, plunging the room into darkness. Meanwhile, he hid around a corner with his blasters ready.

As soon as the first would-be robber's head poked out from the hallway, the room went from dark to extremely bright. By the time the second robber recognized the color of blaster fire, the first one was scrap metal. The second one came around, firing as he did so, and the real fight began.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Loyal Star saw Megatron flying across the sky and the grim look on the face of his God. If he calls the whole nation out to war, I would follow in the beat of a fuel pump, but for now I need to get my house fixed. As he arrived at his house he heard blasting. Fire Eater was under attack. His eyes darkened greatly; not only was someone trying to loot his mansion yet again, but they were attacking the bot who had trained him in Megatronism when he was just a pony biological. As soon as he clearly saw who was who, he too blasted the robber, and as soon as he managed to make the smallest hole in his Faraday cage he let him have a bolt of pony magic lightning that fried his circuits, barely letting him mind transfer to a spare in time. He hurried to Fire Eater's side. Fire Eater had taken some damage, but it was moderate. "Thank you so much for holding the fort for me. Keep both the bodies, you have earned them and it will give you enough Cubes to repair the damage inflicted on you." Soon enough the mansion was fixed and made, for now at least, robber proof. "I think when I become a missionary I will sell this mansion, as I will not be on Cybertron enough to protect it properly from thieves and it'll be cheaper to just rent for short periods of time instead." He had brought a very special Cube with him, a Cube of Megatron's Private Reserve that he had been given at the public award ceremony.

"This is the finest Energon known to exist-Megatron's Private Reserve, the drink of our God. I was given it publically on TV, and I will share it with you because you risked losing a body to defend my stuff. To Megatronism, Megatron himself, and both our careers-may they never falter or fail." To Loyal Star who had it set that Energon tasted like apple juice, the Private Reserve tasted like the very finest apples, the kind that had once been served to Celestia and Luna before the downfall of Equestria. "How good does that Energon taste to you ?" he asked Fire Eater happily.

*****
Earth

The Galactipol fleet got a very unpleasant surprise indeed and it's small scout ships and fighters were quickly destroyed before three great two mile long capital ships came in with big guns the size of Decepticons, and rows of smaller but still dangerous blasters all along the sides capable of creating their own walls of blaster fire.

*****
Venables saw the blaster fire up above and could only imagine what was going on up there. He jumped in shock when an android showed up, thinking it might be that android from Forintel with a pet goat, but to his great relief, the android appeared not to be hostile. Even Decepticon androids were very capable of blasting or otherwise killing humans; but that didn't mean they always wanted to. The bot had very real-looking human eyes but was otherwise obviously a bot. "Now you see what the Decepticon Military is really for. Not for raiding, or really even invading places, but to deal with the blowback from it." The bot laughed with a somewhat metallic laugh and happiness on his face. Venables lowered his gun but he was extremely wary. If anything went wrong, this bot could easily tear his biological body apart. "I always ditch my skin-suit as fast as I can. They're far too clingy for me. But the eyes are built in, so I leave those. I'm with Esoteric Materials. We specialize in the procurement, transport, and resale of hard-to-get items. You may call me Bolo..."

"I like to come to this rock after we do a big deal and draw some heat. Everybody runs and covers the route back to Cybertron, but nobody thinks of looking out here in the sticks."And I can see that you're on the Survival Test. You're looking quite fit, though your clothes and hair are quite a sight. I can only presume that you have had some sort of recent unfortunate event. And now, things are getting quite interesting here. But don't let the war bother you. It'll keep the natives' heads down. Some of them may even start to think we're gods, and we can convert them just like one of the other bow-and-arrow places in the universe. Hard to imagine that your species once ruled this rock, huh!"

"Humans are hardly the worst life in the universe, but robotic life, and Decepticon robotic life in particular, is the best life. If you don't have bad luck, you could live forever," Venables replied. "Your society as a whole is unique."

When he was shown contraband, he didn't want to offend the bot but didn't want to buy it. Either it was fake or if it was real, viewing it could get him into quite serious trouble if he survived his test. So he just told the truth. "When I came here, I didn't bring money. Neither slaves nor wild humans have it, and most Decepticons here just see humans as prey and nothing more and would rather kill or enslave then trade. At the moment I don't have access to much of what you would want. I came here after I helped Decepticons fight Galactipol and rather then leave me to die or be jailed, they took me to Cybertron, which was where I decided to try and join their ranks and earn the Ultimate Upgrade. But when I'm a bot, and have served my first conscription stint and done my first raids, then I'd have enough Energon to buy things from you. Right now, if I was able to trade a simple pillow would be worth a lot for me."

"Maybe we should get somewhere undercover, as if I'm blasted, it's the Neutral Realm for me," Venables said. He didn't fear being sent to the Realm of Punishment, as he was no traitor.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Fire Eater was quite glad when Loyal Star showed up and provided needed backup. While he figured he would have won anyway, he would have taken much more damage in the process.

Soon enough, the two had their Energon glasses out and Loyal Star was pouring out Private Reserve. Fire Eater, not knowing that his once-trainee had a vault full of it, urged that they each just have a couple of celebratory sips. "It's too hard to get this to just drink the whole Cube," he said. "The only legitimate way is to get it as an award. Speaking of that, though, we can discuss some of the other Priestly Secrets once this place is secure and swept for bugs..."

Before long, the doors were re-locked and new construction panels had been welded into place to fix the holes various thieves had made. "You're right that you should sell the mansion," Fire Eater agreed. "As a missionary, you'll be spending years on other planets, only coming back to Cybertron between missions. It'll be much like what you were already doing most of the time - a combination of psyops, espionage, and proselytizing. Fortunately, most missions don't involve going to jail, though some governments may put you there if they're smart enough to try to avoid full religious freedom. Like any other kind of democratic "freedom," the religious version is an open door for subversion - a door that you'll want to walk through every chance you get."

He went on for a while about how much easier it was to get Megatronism rooted in nations that had religious freedom versus those with only one or a few approved faiths. "The hardest are the ones that'll execute you for blasphemy if you speak against whichever god is currently getting the worship. It's pretty much impossible to do an undercover subversion in some of them. Instead, you have to go as a full-on Decepticon just to manage to keep your head on your shoulders." He meant the phrase literally, not as a way to refer to staying sane. A biological or realistic android missionary would be beheaded there, but a proper Decepticon body was too big to overcome and decapitate.

After everything was properly secure and a bug sweep revealed all of the cameras and listening devices, it was time to talk about more-secret matters.

"These are technically rumors, but Temple Command has vetted them and ordered that they presumed true," Fire Eater said, now with solemnity and import. "The first that you need to know is that Megatron's divinity does indeed have a technological component." It was shocking to hear a Priest say this, but not quite world-shattering. "This component, or perhaps 'these components,' have already been counterfeited. I'm sure you have heard of Masher...he is said to be running the best copy-version there is."

"The next rumor," Fire Eater went on, "is that Megatron connived a demon out of the part of his power that allows him control over other realms. We are certain that this is partly true. However, we do NOT believe that the demon herself provided the power, but instead, served as a broker with whichever entity actually did have it. Somehow, during the last Major Firing of the IGNORE Cannon Array, Megatron managed to snatch the power while simultaneously deleting the original holders from our universe. This, of course, is the sort of connivery our god is known for and only glorifies him."

"All that said, we are not to speak of these things with outsiders, lest we be bogged down in ifs and wherefores until the end of time. Keep everything nice and simple, and don't even mention these aspects without doing a bug check first."

Fire Eater paused and refilled his glass with some regular Energon; he didn't want to drink ALL of what he thought was a very limited supply of Private Reserve.

"There are several things you should know about souls," Fire Eater went on. "The first is that the Temple of Lost Souls is indeed a power plant. Many of those who lose to us in battle end up there, where they are forced to provide the Empire with the rest of their usable energy. However, now that our Divine Leader has control of the afterlife, they do not get entirely free even after their souls are 'used up' from an energy standpoint. It turns out that these souls do not truly dissipate, but simply become de-energized enough to become undetectable by instruments. This will surely serve us well for very-long-term espionage projects. A thousand of these - placed in, say, the official residence of an opposing government - will likely re-energize, and as they do so, generate poltergeist-like activity on a level that will cause much chaos..."

"Another important thing about souls is that every soul in the universe is generated by some sort of machine. It apparently always has been this way, and that's the surprising part. It works sort of like with factory-builts, but now that Megatron is ruling the universe, the program has been changed. Now, instead of trending slowly towards the Autobot Way, new biologicals are ensouled as 'hard' Decepticons. It will cause quite an upheaval when all of these 'innocent' babies get big enough to challenge their respective systems. Trying to say that they're rare delinquents isn't going to work when there are entire generations of the same all around. OUR souls, on the other hand, retain their full decision-making ability since Decepticon life has always been so superior to other kinds."

"On another note, I'm sure you know that Megatronism is now the mandatory religion here. Until now, it was mostly a 'lip service' law. However, there is a secret decree which, when activated, will result in a complete purge of open unbelievers and blatant enemies of the religion as its first phase. The next phase will cull the false believers - those who only claim to be Megatronists but really aren't - and after that, the seriously-wrong heretics will meet the foundrybots. The first phase was slated to go into effect this week, but judging by what the Military's been doing, I think it will have to be delayed. Just be ready. Some of those heretics will surely give you roll-engine stories [sob stories] to try to gain the Temple's mercy, and you must not fall for them."

There was no specific order of the subjects Fire Eater mentioned, but instead, the information came as he thought of it. Finally, he asked if Loyal Star had any questions or concerns for further discussion.

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

Earth

At first, the giant Galactipol capital ships had a huge advantage. Though they took fire from millions of distant Decepticon Mil-Spec Blasters, their armor held well as the ships delivered massive blasts of their own.

Before long, however, one of the ships realized that while size has its privileges, it also has its disadvantages. A large platoon of fully-cloaked Decepticons swarmed one like a horde of invisible mosquitoes, with only a small percentage of that horde being uncovered in time for the ship to blast them. About a thousand others landed between the enemy's blaster barrels with muffled clunks, and in smooth motions, wiped used motor oil onto the camera lenses the ship used for navigation and aiming. They also jammed used oil into any other kinds of sensors they could find. Before long, the ship's view had gone from extra-clear to almost blind.

Once that was done, the defenders moved onto the next large ship. It was already firing frantically thanks to warnings radioed from the first one, but the Decepticons' cloaking and advanced aerobatics capabilities served them well. They took more losses before managing to blind this one, but eventually, the job was done.

The third ship wasn't falling for this after seeing what happened to the other two. It fired all of its guns in repeated blasts, and no regular Decepticon could get near it. However, just when it thought it had it made, the Orion showed up and opened fire with cannons as large as those on the Galactipol ship.

Meanwhile, a huge swarm of 100,000 bots rose up from Earth and began to openly blast the two blinded ships. As they were trained, they all concentrated their fire on just a few spots. The combined effect of all of this blasting made it so that the firepower amounted to that of cannons much larger than the actual cannons the ships had. Galactipol's capital ships tried to fire back, but thanks to their messed-up sensors, they missed far more often than not.

Soon, they found that they no longer had communication capabilities either - thanks to each Decepticon soldier broadcasting a cacophony of taunts over the Galactipol military frequencies. The taunting wasn't really done just for the heck of it, either. Its main purpose was signal jamming against Galactipol's inter-ship communications. The Decepticons just thought it was more fun to signal-jam with trash talk instead of static.

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

Over in Yellowstone, Bolo and Venables ducked into a cave. It was a bear's cave, but luckily for them, the bear had met its demise at some point. Now, only a partial bear skeleton remained near the back. It was hard to tell if anything else was lurking in the shelter, but Bolo didn't mention detecting any lifeforms.

"It's too bad you don't have any money," he said. "That makes YOU the most valuable thing about you. 500 Cubes at the Market is a lot of cash for some. You're a bit too unwieldy for this body, though..." Bolo didn't bother to use freeze-face now, and his disappointment at not having a way to cash the guy in showed for a moment.

"Ah, well. We have to do something while we wait, or else we'll get quite bored." Bolo popped his contraband DVD out of its storage position along with a little device that turned out to be a player. Expertly, he put all of the components together and activated the playback, which was projected along one of the walls of the cave.

The first few scenes were indeed of a type that seemed to be the beginning of The Movie, and Venables was very worried. Outside, several 'birds' gathered to watch almost immediately. Bolo, however, simply smirked. "DomIntel knows all, except for what's on this disk, it seems," he said in a smartass sort of way.

After about 10 minutes of Bayish-looking material, static replaced the movie scenes. When the video and audio came back, the monstrosities had been replaced by the live-action G1 design of The Transformers: Decepticons - the government's official production that was part of every SEDP's history module.

"Oh, wow, I'm sorry," Bolo said with obvious, intentionally comedic, insincerity. "Somehow, this regular movie must not have been completely recorded over when I made the disk for the buyer. I 'wonder' how that happened?" Now, he was laughing outright. It had been fake all along, with only a few initial scenes from Bay's version that were provided by formerly-human immigrants who had seen and remembered it.

"It really IS worth $10,000, though," Bolo insisted. "At least, it is until someone buys it and tries to play it on their own equipment. Too bad the buyer smelled some used oil sludge about the deal somehow, and backed out on me."

Suddenly, the immediate area was rocked by several loud thuds and bangs, and a shockwave could be felt through the cave floor. A quick look out front showed part of the debris field of one of the Galactipol capital ships. Each piece of debris seemed to have been hit with blaster fire thousands of times, yet only had cosmetic damage from that. Many chunks were still red-hot from the heat of falling through Earth's atmosphere.

"I bet they used Massed Fire Tactics to bring it down," Bolo said with pride. "When all of those arm-mounted blasters get aimed at the same place, it works more like a giant cannon. But not everyone can get in position for that, so the rest just fire away in hopes of lucking into a weak spot. You'll learn all about this stuff once you do your military stint. It's really quite fun to be in the Decepticon Military - you get to do all sorts of cool stuff that foreigners think can't be done without the use of giant ships. And since they're soooo sure you can't do anything as a horde of no-ship bots, they don't adequately defend themselves against one - and then this happens to them." He indicated the debris field.

[Vallermoore]

Space/Earth

Although the Decepticons had lost some bots to the blasting of the three great capital ships, they were merely sent back to the Military Save Vault in streams of data packets to await reactivation and new bodies. Unlike with biologicals, where life in the Military was far more dangerous then life as a civilian, with Decepticons it was very much the other way around. A civilian Decepticon might die when raiding a planet that was very advanced or (mostly) in a fight with another bot who either jammed him or destroyed his spare bodies and saves first. As for losing a limb, the Military replaced the limbs of active soldiers for free. For all but the poor and very poor bots losing a limb was not the same disaster that it would be for a biological as they could buy a new one quite easily, for less Energon then a whole new body.

Two were blinded and broken into pieces by the Decepticons, but no bots could get near the third without losing a body. Then the Orion , still with it's old name but now converted from a Vallermooreian tanker to a Decepticon warship, in Decepticon colours and plated with Decepticon armour, joined the fray, and although it was touch and go for a while it destroyed the third ship, which happened to be named the Ultimate Policeman and the other Galactipol ships fled for their lives, mocked by the Decepticon Military for being cowards as well as police, two things that were despised and disliked throughout the Empire. There had been no need to alert the Decepticon civilian population.

*****
Earth

Venables considered himself lucky that in that body Bolo considered himself not worth the hassle of taking him alive for slavery, and was extremely cautious around the Decepticon. Just then several loud bangs were heard and it turned out to be hot bits of broken spaceship. "I look forward to my military service if it means I can get involved in battles like that one," Venables said. "The Decepticon Empire must be one of the biggest empires in history by now."

Cybertron

"Would you like some Energon Supreme?," Loyal Star asked in the area that had just been swept clear of bugs. He didn't say anything more about its location as although only Fire Eater would here, and Fire Eater was his best friend, Fire Eater was still a Decepticon and even more wedded to the Decepticon Way then most Decepticons were in general due to being a priest, and to be too open would be like putting meat right next to a crocodile's gaping jaws. "He took note of everything Fire Eater passed along to him. The fact that Megatron's divinity had tech as a part of it was not really a surprise-everything else about Decepticons was tech based after all, including themselves. The bit about souls was interesting. All those little babies and foals who were too young to do very much would soon be Decepticons in spirit.When he found there would be a purge of non-believers, he thought to himself that unless there was some horrible mistake, he would not be on the list of those to be purged.

"When there are whole human, pony and alien nations of Decepticons in Spirit, some will be happy to join us, others might not be so happy and have to feel our blaster fire, but one day the universe will be Megatron's," Loyal Star said.

After I become a Full Priest it would be good if I knew how long I had to sell my house and most of my stuff before I become an interstellar missionary on distant worlds. Better that then have it looted or worse. I'm not selling my Book of Megatron, that's going along with me in a panel."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

Fire Eater was just starting to answer Loyal Star's question when a loud alarm suddenly rang out all across the planet. It took just a quick look in his immigration orientation pack for Loyal Star to see, right on the front page, that this meant that there was a serious interplanetary invasion attempt coming at Cybertron itself. As a citizen, he was expected to immediately fly into space to attack any non-Decepticon craft or beings that happened to be close to the planet, only stopping to gear or fuel up beforehand if necessary.

"I'd bet 10 Cubes that it's Galactipol," Fire Eater said with a bit of urgency as he now chugged that Cube of Supreme that was offered. He slammed the empty glass into his panel and made a quick brandishing motion with his blasters. "Let's go give them the assisted suicide they came here for!"

Outside, the Decepticon Military was already swarming upward, followed closely by over a billion off-duty Decepticons. It was clear that almost everyone knew exactly how to do this mindblowingly-massive formation, and the result was terrifying, yet also held the beauty of a well-tuned megaflock of birds. In fact, the only thing that made it terrifying was the knowledge that all of these heavily-armed beings were flying for battle purposes.

Soon, the two priests were in space with the others, and thanks to the massiveness of the interstellar void, were able to catch glimpses of their targets as the Decepticons spread out. There, approaching Cybertron, was a fleet of at least 10,000 Galactipol ships of all sizes. They were closing quickly, as were the Decepticons, each hoping to be the first to attain close enough range for effective aiming.

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

Galactipol Main Battle Fleet

"Holy SHIT! I thought they said the diversionary attack on Earth had been a success at pulling troops off of here!" The admiral of the command ship shouted across the bridge. "There are so many of them that our sensors have lost count!"

"I thought it was propaganda that 'there are no civilians among the Decepticons!'" The vice-admiral shouted back, almost in a panic.

"We ALL thought that was just lies! But we have to deal with it right now!! Open fire as soon as we can! There are so many that we can't help but hit something!!" At the last realization, the admiral almost smiled - but with 1 billion defenders coming on the scene and seemingly another 10 billion flying up right behind them, all moving into a formation that would give each and every one of them a chance of taking shots at the Galactipol fleet, he didn't dare relax enough to do so.

~~~~~~~~~~

Decepticon Military

Megatron, who was still on Earth with the few million troops who had seemingly won a war against Galactipol, was immediately radioed with the news: The enemy had sent a MUCH larger fleet against Cybertron; the attack on Earth had been a diversion. General Soundwave had ordered the planet to full defense in Megatron's absence, and it looked as if the victory should be in the bag even with the most basic Zerg Rushing, but the intelligence center warned that they did not know what sort of weapons Galactipol had, the full number of ships they would be able to muster, or how good of supply lines there were on the enemy side.

Megatron cursed, but also gave an unconscious little nod. So the Police Alliance knew a bit of connivery after all! Perhaps there was at least 0.10% of something somewhat respectable about someone over there. A diversionary attack on Earth, never intended to take it to begin with, was unexpected.

The last enemy who had attacked here instead of Cybertron intended the attack to be more of a form of political pressure on the Empire, and only attacked the Metal Planet when the Decepticons wouldn't budge on their position. Galactipol, on the other hand, clearly intended Cybertron to be the main target all along and had only been trying to draw the Decepticon Forces away from it. That could make things harder, though Megatron didn't really think it would. Both targets were much harder now that the prior enemy had made the need for good defense so clearly known.

Immediately, Megatron ordered all but one general to fly to the battle zone, but left the 5 million troops in place just in case Galactipol intended to double back to Earth in the midst of the larger emergency. Then, with the bang that comes when a massive body just disappears from a place with an atmosphere, he teleported himself away. In an instant, he was in the battle zone himself.

Uncharacteristically, Megatron did not immediately appear in front of his horde. He knew that even he would need just a moment to re-orient himself, and floating there in the way of everything during that time wouldn't be too bright. Soon enough, he gained his bearings and got a briefing on the "big picture" of the battle area via encrypted radio. Then, he made his way to the front lines to lead.

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

Earth

Venables and Bolo looked at each other with a bit of relief as the sounds of artillery faded to silence. However, just as they relaxed, a massive BANG ripped across the air. It was the noise from many tons of metal warping away, but they had no way of knowing that. Just after that, they heard several jets heading back out to space, and they got a glimpse of Carjack as he zoomed by along with a couple of other generals. Sonic booms followed them as they disappeared into the sky.

Soon enough, Bolo got a strange look on his face. He now seemed not glad to be on Earth, but irked.

"I'm leaving right now!" He announced out of the blue. "I just got a radio report that those idiots, Galactipol, have sent their Main Fleet to Cybertron. At least 10,000 ships. Billions of us are already out there engaging them, so their loss is all but assured, but a proper Decepticon will never sit around chilling on Earth when Cybertron itself is engaged in war! Wish me well." With no bow, and without a further word, Bolo flew off into the sky using once-hidden foot-jets. Light "flying-squirrel"-style panels emerged between his arms and torso to provide stability.

Venables was just wondering whether such a lightweight craftish-looking flight mechanism could possibly be spaceworthy when a small ship zoomed by. It tilted a bit and showed its cockpit. Bolo waved from within before it disappeared into the heights. Not long after, another ship flew by, this one not showing its driver. Could it be the one who had the goat, leaving said goat now open for hunting? Would it be too nasty to go after what he now knew was a tamed one?

In the cave, the "hot" disk and its player remained, now projecting the credits from the Bay version onto the cave wall. There was now no doubt: That DVD was certainly NOT worth $10,000. In fact, it likely was only worth the cost of materials and labor used to make the DVD it was printed on. Venables shook his head with bemusement, but his mind soon turned to wondering what was happening near Cybertron.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

As soon as a certain siren gave three deep blasts across the whole planet, the meaning was clear. For Loyal Star he needed to pull up his immigration orientation pack, since he had never heard that call before. It meant that the Metal Planet itself was threatened, and at once he gulped another glass of Energon Supreme to fully fuel himself and readied for battle. He turned his pain sensors down to 30% (high enough so he would want to dodge blasts but low enough so pain could not stop him fighting) turned his Bravery Up to 90% (100% would just earn a Darwin Award and a lost body at best) and readied his blasters. To be sure, he probably didn't need Bravery Up, since he saw the attack on the Metal Planet as an attack on his religion and his God, but he was not taking any chances. Within a minute or less he and Fire Eater were in the air, and the sky was so crowded that the average biological pilot in such a situation would have crashed very quickly. These planes were Decepticons, however, and just as a human or pony who was not either totally drunk or seriously mentally or/and physically ill could avoid crashing into others, so it was with the Decepticons. Flying was like running for them and they had no trouble staying in formation.

His cameras gave him 360 degree vision, with the Metal Planet behind him, the Decepticons on either side, and the ships of Galactipol looming up in front of him. Whilst most of the Decepticon Military had been decoyed to Earth, the remaining soldiers had the Decepticon civilian population to back them up. Clearly any Galactipol spies who did reach Cybertron had been uncovered by Domintel, captured and killed, as the fact that Cybertron had civilians was clearly visible to any biological who reached Cybertron and managed to stay alive and uncaught for any length of time. The shops, houses, clearly civilian Decepticons walking the streets, and the Raid Games Centres for small Decepticon children to enjoy themselves safely in would have given that away with no hacking or high level spying needed. Unlike biological civilians, Decepticon civilians had some very effective blasters, all but the youngest were in between conscription stints (child soldiers were not used as it would kill their sapience if they were too young) and there was no antiwar movement amongst them. They also had a deep love for the Metal Planet (it was this that before anti-changeling mods were made had caused some of them to be drained of even battery power when they first fought changelings) and there was no way they would allow anyone, much less biologicals, to attack and raid it.

Seconds later, battle was joined, (before Megatron had shown up, but noone had been ordered to wait for him or had any idea that Megatron was about to show up-Decepticon SOP for attacks on Cybertron was to deal with the foe even if no High Generals were present) and Loyal Star blasted at the foe with vigor. "Take that, you biological pigs! No police allowed here! This is Decepticon airspace!" Other bots were saying much ruder stuff about what they thought about the police until Megatron's voice cut sharply across all frequencies. "Everybody, for now, pipe down unless you are a senior officer as you are drowning out the Military's orders! Once we have the foe on the run, you can sound off your voice chips at them all you like."

By now blasts were coming in and Loyal Star's tail took the Decepticon equivalent of a flesh wound. He'd need to buy a new outer panel but nothing serious was damaged. Fire Eater got his canopy smashed but that too was the equivalent of a flesh wound. New canopies were relatively cheap compared to whole bodies. Loyal Star could sense the Decepticon anger all around him as they reached a range where they could properly blast the foe. Loyal Star caught a glimpse of General Thundercracker and moved slightly to make way for the High General. Elsewhere although he couldn't see it, General Carjack reached the fight and his Genocide Battalion as they attacked a Galactipol space cruiser.

*****
Earth

Venables slipped out to hunt goats, as it would be safer with very few bots still on the planet unless they were guarding the more recently captured slaves and soon brought one down, cut it up, cooked it and ate it. He wondered what was going on up there, wished Bolo good luck, and found some moss that would make a good pillow.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

While Decepticons did many civilianish things in between their conscription stints, Galactipol was finding out that there was indeed a lot of truth in the saying that there were "no civilians" among them. By most people's reckoning, a "civilian" was not a fully-armed and fully-trained soldier who just happened to be doing something outside of his nation's military at the time of an attack. In fact, in most nations, the majority of civilians tried to run for the borders (or at least to more-peaceful areas of their own countries) when war broke out, often resulting in tsunamis of displaced refugees who either ended up in camps or swarming the streets of some hapless recipient nation.

There were none of those wimps among the Decepticons. There would be 0 refugees, 0 who tried to escape the hostilities. Far from flying away or seeking shelter from the impending war, it looked like the entire population was quite eagerly flying TO the battle zone - not even just to watch, as some nations' civilians would do, but to actively partake in the fight right along with the Military. It was clear that they even had a practiced mass formation for just such occasions, and their motions were all but seamless as they stayed out of each other's way and out of the way of the official soldiers. About the only difference was that the troops were divided up into pre-made divisions and squadrons, and that the Military also had artillery coming into position. The "civilians," on the other hand, were operating as a giant swarm and had far less artillery - most of which came from the private armories of groups like the ICC.

This made it so that, while the Decepticons did do plenty of things like run shops, raise offspring, do mechanical work, and even sometimes work at jobs, they were really all raring for battle at all times - and, thanks to the upgrades and retraining they got with each conscription stint, all ready to deliver one. The populace might have been civilians during peaceful times, but they certainly didn't count as civilians in the usual sense of the word during an attack on Cybertron.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In the battle zone, the initial clash was swift and brutal, and casualties quickly mounted on both sides. When the opponents finally reached range of each other, the Galactipol ships scored easy hits since the huge swarm of Decepticons was unable to get out of the way thanks to there being so many other bots in the immediate area. Meanwhile, the Decepticon Horde was firing with vigor itself, and its sheer size made it so that any attempts at dodging that the Galactipol ships made just caused them to fly into the way of some other Decepticon energy-blasts instead.

Soon, each side's part of space was filled with metal pieces, and on Galactipol's side, meaty gibs were interspersed among them. This unnerved some of the Galactipol troops, especially when someone recognized a head or perhaps a ring on a blasted-off hand that floated by the still-intact remaining ships. The Decepticons, on the other hand, were no more bothered than wasps are when they swarm other wasp hives and lose several of their own numbers in the process. Instead, the Decepticons simply adjusted their formation to one that was a bit wider in order to lower the chance of being struck. Meanwhile, at the Military's Main Save Vault - which was a piece of hardware unknown to Galactipol - a storage space meter crept ever-so-slowly upward. Ten thousand, then 20,000 master files registered almost immediately as the carnage began in earnest. Thanks to its automatic compression algo, the Vault could hold 10 million full files of mind data before it needed another solid-state storage unit added to it. A soldier stood by with exactly that piece of add-on hardware just in case it turned out to be needed.

~~~~~~~~

Now that Megatron was on the scene and his voice went over the radio, Galactipol changed its tactics. There was a pause, and then coordinates went out over their frequency: The coordinates of where they saw Megatron floating there giving out orders. Soon enough, they all fired on the spot, only to find that the return fusion cannon fire didn't come from there. Instead, it came from a place miles away, off their left flank. The "Megatron" they'd seen had merely been a hologram projected by General Soundwave. A Galactipol ship broke up almost immediately since it was caught by complete surprise by the real Megatron.

Near a Galactipol space cruiser, a new division arrived with all the stealth of a herd of elephants, taking plenty of fire in the process. Carjack had never been worth a darn at stealth in situations like these, and had long ago given up even trying. He and his few million regulars barged up, blasting like mad, but taking more evasive actions than the main horde could. Since his full division contained millions of bots, the space cruiser didn't stand a chance despite its weapon-covered sides and the fact that it was firing them all with full gusto. Within minutes, it was nothing but debris for the other Galactipol ships to watch out for. In exchange, it had managed to deactivate 1,000 of Carjack's full division, but - as Galactipol was starting to realize - a kill count of 1,000 per ship present is nothing when the enemy is coming at you with a total of billions.

"JUST MOW 'EM DOWN!" Megatron's voice cut across the airwaves. The order wasn't just for Carjack's forces, but for everyone. There was no doubt now: Megatron didn't intend to give Galactipol even the honor of bothering to use tactics or strategy on them. The Decepticons were to just use their insurmountable numerical and force advantage to blast the - tiny in comparison - other fleet into little dead pieces as if it were but a bunch of insignificant gnats. It would make no difference how many bots Galactipol deactivated in return - the Decepticons had their spare bodies and save vaults, enough fighters that there would be plenty to take over if anyone ran out of the fuel needed to blast, and there were billions of them. Meanwhile, Galactipol would surely run out of both firepower and ships before they could come anywhere near victory.

Suddenly, the admiral of the Galactipol fleet, who had just recently thought 10,000 ships would stand a very good chance of winning, felt like a person would if he were standing on the beach as the biggest tsunami ever came roaring in. "RETREAT, RETREAT!!!" He ordered his side, and the "universal police force," which had seemed so mighty to those in its own part of the galaxy, began to turn their ships to do exactly that. As they did so, the continued firing in hopes of deterring the Decepticons from coming after them.

"Turning tail, I see," Megatron's voice contained a thin-lipped jeer as it cut into the Galactipol military frequencies. "Trying to run for your pathetic little lives. But it's too late for that. You attacked us - that means you wanted to commit suicide-by-Decepticon. We wouldn't dream of letting you go without fulfilling your wish to die..."

With a loud "Decepticons, ATTACK!" The chase was on.

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

Earth

The planet was quiet as Venables drifted off to sleep, his belly full of goat meat and all likely foes off fighting their war. Sometime in the middle of the night, however, he would find what the Bureau of Paranormal Research already knew: There were actual hauntings out here.

The sound of Native American war drums was low, but it was a regular beat, and Venables awakened to hear the eerie noise. He peeked out of the cave and soon saw a tribe of Blackfeet, clearly marching in war formation. A strange energy glowed around them as they carefully picked their way through the area and then sped up upon reaching the flat land outside the cave. Suddenly, the leader of the war band held up his hand. With a sudden movement, he turned and pointed directly at Venables.

Arrows flew instantly, seeming to pierce Venables and the edges of the outcropping he'd been hiding under. He reeled and passed out, his apparent last thought being along the lines of a combination of "oh shit" and "WTF?!"

The next morning, Venables awakened, body intact, but in a new position. He was outside of his cave clutching his heart as if to remove a particularly painful arrow. Yet, he soon realized that there was no physical damage. Only his own confidence in his memory let him know that something had, indeed, happened the night before.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Galactipol was about to get a nasty shock, as there were no civilian Decepticons to terrify here.

Somewhere in the battle MasterBlaster shamelessly hot-dogged, although without getting in the way of the Decepticon Military. His antics would have got him blown up a dozen times but his Alternate Mods prevented this. Elsewhere SolarTempest and the Cybertronian Business Association was acting almost like a military unit in their own right, as they systematically destroyed one of the middle-sized enemy cruisers. Scope and Gatekeeper were out there dealing with these unwanted illegals with great prejudice-before Megatron's general order to pipe down, they had hurled some very nasty insults at them. Vintage's blasters were not at all vintage, and did very effective damage. Carjack was wearing his crossed wrenches symbol as was the Genocide Battalion, even amongst Decepticons, their hatred for the biologicals was infamous, made worse by their attack on Cybertron. The rest of Carjack's regiment was there too. The ICC had brought it's private artillery in to help the Decepticon Military.

General Soundwave was busy doing things like creating holograms of Megatron to draw away enemy fire. Although he was a god, it was possible that Megatron might lose a body from a direct hit, and Soundwave was not going to let that happen.

A blast went straight past Loyal Star and took out Fire Eater, blowing his multi-coloured body to bits. For a moment Loyal Star was horrified, until he remembered that surely Fire Eater had other bodies for sure and was not dead, but merely flying to his next body in a stream of data packets. All the same, he wanted revenge for what had been done to his friend. Seeing that the ship that did it had taken some damage, he unleashed pony magic upon it and fried it's wiring, leaving it unable to blast or move. Very quickly, hordes of Decepticons descended on it.

Megatron's voice was heard again by all the Decepticons present. "JUST MOW 'EM DOWN!"

As the bots closed in, and the fleet started retreating in horror, Megatron spoke again. "Turning tail, I see. Trying to run for your pathetic little lives. But it's too late for that. You attacked us - that means you wanted to commit suicide-by-Decepticon. We wouldn't dream of letting you go without fulfilling your wish to die...Decepticons, ATTACK! Oh, and for now at least you can break radio silence, as the biological rejects are no longer a threat."

A chorus of curses was aimed at the foe.

"Eat hot blaster fire!"

"Back to your planets, fermented rubbish!"

"YEEEEEHAWWWWW!" That was from General Carjack. "Genocide Battalion, let's find their home worlds and destroy everyone on them."

Loyal Star radioed Fire Eater. "Fire Eater, are you ok? I shorted out the ship that blasted you." He was 95% sure that Fire Eater was fine, but wanted to be certain of it. If Fire Eater was dead, unlikely but possible given the violence of the battle, he would need to use a scrying crystal to locate Fire Eater's save discs so he could get him back, once the battle was over. Amongst all the billions of bots, Fire Eater was his true friend.

Very few bots had been killed outright, except for a few poor bots and a few bots that were so belligerent that they used up all their spares. The first group would end up in the Neutral Realm, but for now, the destination of the second group was uncertain. They had been killed, but out of an excess of patriotic loyalty.

Somewhere, one of all those bots decided to turn traitor and offer Galactipol information on how to perma-kill Decepticons through jamming in exchange for immunity for himself and Admiral rank, as well as generous fuel rations. He had thought about this before, but never uttered a sound about it which was why he had not been dealt with by Domintel. In doing this, he was to go down in Decepticon history as the worst and most despicable traitor since Sky Knight.

*****
Earth

After his nightmare, Venables thought it might be best to find somewhere new to sleep the next night.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Decepticon Space

Megatron heard Carjack's order go out and quickly overrode it. Carjack had ordered only his Genocide Battalion to attack Galactipol's planets, and that was just 10,000 troops out of his division. It would not be enough to take an entire planet. Even the puny humants of Earth would be able to evade so few, and then come at them with massive power from somewhere on the planet that wasn't adequately covered. Galactipol's Federation, which was much more advanced than Earth's nations had been, would fare even better.

Carjack grumbled, but quickly adjusted his order. He now ordered his entire division to come along! That would surely give him insurmountable power against at least one Galactipol world.

Megatron was secretly flustered, but sounded calm as he ordered Carjack to hold that order as well. The problem now wasn't that Carjack would lose; in fact, with several million troops, his victory would be all but assured. However, the Decepticon population would be likely to take off right on his tail in eagerness to join in - and this would leave Cybertron wide open for a strike from any hidden enemy fleet! Megatron's first job would be to get at least 20% of able-bodied "civilian" fighters to stay home for the defense. This couldn't easily be done if the excitement level remained at a fever pitch, as it would if they saw a division continuing on after the destruction of the Galactipol fleet.

Soon enough, said Galactipol fleet was caught up to, and the war resumed in space. It wasn't long before Galactipol - used to treaties in which retreating enemies would not be hunted down - was overwhelmed by the Decepticons, who considered such an idea to be so idiotic as to not even consider it much less agree to it. Thanks to the difference in mindset, Galactipol's ships were caught with their virtual pants down and quickly wiped out.

Before long, the Decepticon Military was headed home to refuel and make speedy repairs. Megatron got on the radio, and the Bureau of Propaganda immediately put the voice feed on all of the holovision stations. The Leader made an address congratulating everyone on their part in defending the glorious Metal Planet from the "biological police scum" that had dared to defile Cybertronian Space with their very presence.

"Of course, we are going to continue our punic wars against these chunks of used oil sludge," Megatron promised. "However, against this enemy, it is essential that we have a serious defensive force on Cybertron and our other worlds at all times. They have shown the ability and willingness to deliver battle to our door, so we have to be ready for it. I am not happy to give this order, but for the good of the defense of everything Decepticon, I am ordering every gang with more than 10 members to remain on Cybertron to provide extra defense. General Skywarp's division, along with the General, will also be remaining to provide fully-updated defensive power."

Most of the people on Cybertron cheered. Their gangs were small enough to evade the order. Members of the ICC, the Cybertronian Business Association, Master Blaster's gang, and other large organizations were far less pleased. Curses were heard all around their territories. Skywarp and his division also grumbled, though they made sure their radios were off before doing so.

Among the big gangs, a few went ahead and got ready for war. They would ignore the order, having a gut feeling that it wouldn't be a problem unless so many did so that it caused actual capability issues on Cybertron.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Invisius

It had been a long time since any interesting news had come across Masher's radio from Cybertron, and he was quite surprised when he heard that there was a colossal space battle in progress. Then, however, he smiled in a knowing way.

"Listen ta dis," he said to Red Diamond, who had been in another room. Red arrived, and they heard the military chatter as Galactipol was first driven off and then destroyed. "It seems dat Galactipol is as hostile as one might expect of a group with key personnel who are no longer being bribed to 'not know' where Cybertron is." He chuckled briefly, but then became serious. "Radio our operatives there and tell 'em ta drop everything and get outta dere right now, even if it means blowin' their covers and leavin' by force. You know where dem Deceps are headed next. Da whole Feda'ration's gonna get bare-sanded. Dey may even just glass 'em from some moon."

Masher swiveled around in his big chair and now faced Red Diamond. "Dem corrupt cops were lucrative while dey lasted." He got up and went to a special humidor, made of a rich, dark wood from a far-off planet - a Galactipol Federation planet. He opened it up and extracted two of the five Decepticon-scale cigars within, and handed one to Red. "Ta da mem'ry a' da chief 'a police of Byzinga." With that, Red lit Masher's cigar before lighting his own, and they both took a puff using their Smoking Modules. As far as they were concerned, the man they spoke of - a corrupt chief of the police force on the minor planet they mentioned - was already dead and vaporized. Megatron would surely make reality match the assumption soon enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Galactipol Federation Planets

All over the alliance, troops were scrambling in near-panic to ready themselves for the full Decepticon invasion they were sure was coming. Meanwhile, civilians - the regular kind - were rushing about for no particular reason, panicking from reports that their attack forces had been not only beaten, but utterly destroyed.

That's when huge robots began to appear out of warehouses, giant underground city drainage pipes, abandoned-looking garages, and other such places. These appeared for all the worlds to be Decepticons, with only one difference: They bore symbols of powerful-looking oil derricks instead of Decepticon Seals. Just about when everyone thought they were doomed, these bots took off into the skies with great haste. Soon afterward, a flotilla of small ships took off after them - the craft of those who had left their real bodies back on Invisius and now needed spacecraft to get home.

Needless to say, the appearance of what seemed to be a hostile force immediately occupied the attention of the military forces on all of the Galactipol worlds, and the IOPC bots found themselves being chased by substantial numbers of warships. Galactipol's military thought for sure that their targets were scouts, and they were determined to stop any intelligence from getting back to Cybertron!

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

Space, near Galactipol's Newly-Appointed Command World

A lone Decepticon flew under deep cloaking, intending to approach Galactipol with his treasonous offer: To sell the secret of permanently killing Decepticons in exchange for specific legal and political favors. If the deal went through, he could finally set up his own syndicate - on a planet where, he believed, no one would expect one. That would make him the king of the streets if not the Federation, and he believed, he would bribe his way into the actual top spot soon enough.

As he came closer, he noticed a number of marked bots flying away quickly with a few hundred Galactipol troops on their tails. The bots were all excellent aerobats, and their evasive maneuvering allowed them to avoid the fire coming at them. Unfortunately for him, he would be directly in the way of this mini-swarm. In fact, one IOPCer was coming right at him and would soon crash into him head on! He quickly flashed his presence, just long enough for circuits to pick it up but not human eyes.

Immediately, he found out that this was a bad mistake even though the IOPC bot now easily avoided a collision. Decepticons, and the Invisius offshoots thereof, weren't the only beings out here with access to proper circuitry. Every Galactipol ship's sensors quickly reported his presence and location. While he had disappeared immediately, these reports remained, displaying his shape and coordinates to the pilots.

Not realizing what the traitor was doing up there, or that he even was a traitor, they turned their cannons to this much-easier, obviously-Decepticon, target that wasn't taking any serious evasive measures. In a flash of artillery fire, the traitor was blown to bits, mistaken for a loyal Decepticon soldier. The IOPC took a few dings as they barged through the new debris field while activating their FTL, but soon, they were gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Military Intelligence Office
Main Military Base

The MilIntel Supercomputer wasn't nearly as powerful as DomIntel's, but it didn't have to watch for as many things. One thing it did scan for was radio activity coming from places it shouldn't be. When it detected a mind-transfer from Galactipol Space, it quickly put an alert onto the screens of its attending agents.

"Nobody goes out alone to a place that they know is about to get its face pounded in. Not unless they intend to fight on the wrong side." The commander's voice was rock-hard. "Alert Domestic Intelligence that a traitor just came back the hard way. Cooperate fully with the investigation." He ordered his subordinates. Within minutes, DomIntel was at work. Even so, before it could order execution, it would have to have sufficient proof that the traitor was, indeed, a traitor. While it was far easier for DomIntel to convict than it would be for a typical rules-bound police force, even they had to be sure that the guy didn't have a legitimate reason for being there. After all, at this very moment, ForIntel had been reporting that a huge IOPC infestation was on its way out through that very area.

They were, however, sure enough that the suspect was a traitor that they would have no qualms in capturing and hacking him in order to get that proof. Soon, a squad was on its way to do just that.

~~~~~~~~~~

Earth

Venables hiked away, looking for a less-creepy area to rest.

Suddenly, he saw a bunch of vultures on the ground. After approaching carefully, he saw that they were real - and so was the fresh corpse they were eating. By the clothing, he could tell that it was a man from the same tribe as the humans he had encountered before. Had the man been trying to track him, or was he just a hunter who had suffered a mishap? He came closer and took a better look at the body, shooing away the scavenger birds to do so.

It took a while to find the cause of death, especially since the body had been partially eaten. But then he saw it: Someone had bashed the back of his head in with a rock. The body itself looked like it had been dead only about a day.

Venables' mind was filled with questions. Who had done it? Did he have a reason, such as a prior beef with the guy, or was it done for a motive like robbery? Maybe it was some nut! He looked around a bit fearfully, and his hand tightened on the grip of his gun. The body before him reminded him that humans were still a very dangerous species, at least for anyone who wasn't made of metal.

[Vallermoore]

Decepticon Space

Megatron privately radioed Carjack at once. "Cancel that order, the Genocide Battalion is too small to get the job done!"

General Carjack let out a sigh. "Order canceled on Megatron's orders-instead, the whole Division is coming along."

Megatron replied "Cancel that order too for now at least. The problem is, that at this moment the Decepticon Nation is so riled up and angry at the invasion that if you and your division head off after Galactipol, even I will find it very hard to stop everybody charging right after you. Meaning if there are any more hidden Galactipol fleets, they could attack the Metal Planet and raid it with a good chance of success, or even do something like blowing up the Main Foundary before we get back to stop them." Having ruled for so many centuries, Megatron could sense the general feelings of the nation as a whole at times like this, much like a Changeling Queen could sense the feelings of her Hive. Soon enough the last of the Galactipol Fleet was reduced to pieces of floating debris. No mercy was given in this case as there was a special hatred for those who targeted the Metal Planet, even though it had not in fact been so much as scratched. Not a single Galactipol police officer had landed upon it.

Soon enough the Decepticon Military and most bots were home refueling, and Fire Eater, now in one of his spares, met up with Loyal Star. "Nasty little biological gnats, what do they want with the Metal Planet anyway? It has no breathable air or drinkable water for them, so if they did somehow get there they couldn't stay for long." His eyes were dim.

"I used pony magic on the ship that blasted you and shorted it totally out," Loyal Star said, causing a warm glow to appear in Fire Eater's eyes.

Megatron congratulated the Nation as a whole. "Those biological police scum defiled sacred Cybertronian space thinking that the "civilians" amongst you would break and flee in terror. *snort* Clearly they had no idea of the very basics about how things work here. We are a nation of warrior pirates and we all know what to do if our Metal Planet is attacked-we fly out and kick ass. Soon we will be going out to wipe Galactipol off the intergalactic map! "Of course, we are going to continue our Punic wars against these chunks of used oil sludge. However, against this enemy, it is essential that we have a serious defensive force on Cybertron and our other worlds at all times. They have shown the ability and willingness to deliver battle to our door, so we have to be ready for it. I am not happy to give this order, but for the good of the defense of everything Decepticon, I am ordering every gang with more than 10 members to remain on Cybertron to provide extra defense. General Skywarp's division, along with the General, will also be remaining to provide fully-updated defensive power."

Cheers broke out amongst most Decepticons. MasterBlaster let out a "Damm it" and then clapped his hands over his mouth realising that he just cursed a Megatronian decision. Luckily for him, he was by no means the only one to let out said curses. SolarTempest, several miles away, was not impressed either at being through no fault of his own being confined to garrison duty. Nor was the ICC boss Connect, or Skywarp's Division or the other bots. General Skywarp's blazing eyes dimmed like slowly cooling metal. Biological armies liked garrison duty as it was safe, but Decepticons detested it as it meant no battle and no loot for them.

*****
Invisius

Red Diamond sent out orders to get out before the Decepticons arrived and blew everything up. Things were good between him and Masher; they were in fact firm friends and everything had turned out very well between IOPC and Coltanis. They had worked out a new specification for Coding new bots with the best things of both Coltanis and Decepticons although noone was coding new offspring quite yet.

Galactipol Federation Planets

When bots appeared on the Galactipol home worlds with oil derrick symbols on, everyone was terrified but these bots fled instead, and were followed by warships, and as a result of this, a would be traitor bot with high hopes of one day ruling a planet was blown up instead.

Cybertron

Milintel picked up the mind transfer and Domintel was alerted to the filthy traitor. Very quickly his spares had key engine parts removed, but were not destroyed, just in case he had a legitimate reason for being there. Soon enough a Domintel squad brought him in. Delete repeated word think you may be a traitor, so we need you to be code read. If you're not a traitor we'll let you go. We never execute the innocent." When he refused to cooperate, a wielding torch was soon produced and he was strapped down on a gurney and forcibly code read. An hour later they had the evidence, and alerted General Soundwave. "We have a traitor to the Nation here that was going to tell Galactipol how to jam us. Shall we lower him into a smelting pit now, or keep him until a bot who is higher then us does it?" The traitor bot who went by the name Swiftsure started begging to see his Coder one last time, causing the nearby bots to do the Decepticon equivalent of rolling their eyes.

Earth

Venables was worried now, as the same thing could happen to him if he were next careful. He would need to find a cave before nightfall and get a fire going.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Main Military Base
Situation Room

Many of the hidden panels were open and showing screens now, and Leader Megatron - along with his High Generals and several newly-chosen, but very experienced, Battle Commanders - were all watching them intently. Each one showed a map of a different Galactipol-aligned planet with its stationary anti-air artillery and anti-air capable military bases marked with blue dots. Blue stars indicated military command centers, and blue stars with circles around them showed political command centers. All of these centers were surrounded with blue dots; there would be no easy way to fly in and "behead" the command structures of these worlds.

Flashing blue dots were also showing, though these were only apparent on some of the maps. In these places, Decepticon military scouts had already gotten into position in space, outside of the planets' detection ranges, and were secretly reporting what they were seeing using the telescopic capabilities of their optics. The flashing dots represented mobile artillery and other major mobile enemy equipment that was significant enough to watch out for. There were thousands of these dots on the maps where reporting was active.

"As you can see, Galactipol's remaining worlds are currently as ready for us as possible," Megatron said with seriousness. "We will be flying directly into full opposition even on the smallest and weakest of their planets. Of course, their weak planets' idea of 'full opposition' is nowhere near enough to win against us, but we'll still have to be ready. We don't want any unnecessary deactivations, especially when we have so many planets to overrun in a single operation."

The generals perked up at the mention of invading an entire federation of worlds in a single operation. "I presume we are to attack them all in order to prevent them from just moving around when we come in?" Asked General Soundwave.

"That's part of it," Megatron said, "but only a small part. What I don't want happening is them all being able to consolidate their forces. By attacking every one of their planets at once, we'll force their troops to remain divided. Doing that, however, will also force us to keep OUR troops divided. This is why I've appointed more Battle Commanders for this mission. They have more planets than we have generals, which means that we need to split up our usual divisions. While they're split, our Commanders - or Lower Generals, if you will - will be in charge of the new subdivisions."

"Splitting up our forces in this way will be far less damaging to us than it will be for them," Megatron went on. "Our numerical superiority will make it easy to take the lesser worlds. As for the larger planets..." Megatron turned to Soundwave and gave him a nod.

Soundwave began to speak. "[The Bureau of] Propaganda is currently preparing a pirate broadcast campaign and will be directing it to the lesser worlds. In it, they will 'leak' fake news that says we have decided to obliterate those planets and everything on them like we did to their main planet. This will, I believe, cause a mass panic. In turn, the panicking civilians will rush to the larger Galactipol worlds. This will plunge those worlds into chaos since there'll be oceans of refugees, many of whom come from different cultures. Galactipol is a federation, rather than a unified republic, because their cultures are too different for full unification - and our propaganda campaign should cause them immediate internal strife."

Soundwave continued, "ForIntel is reporting that on the largest worlds, there are groups of moralistic idiots who wonder about the 'legality'" - he outright snorted with derision - "of Galactipol's initial action against our nation. Where they tried to insist that we send our people into their jurisdiction. Currently, this is only slightly undercutting their feeling of moral righteousness for the war. However, I have directed ForIntel to eliminate and replace their Attorney General with a ForIntel agent lookalike. The agent will, within just a few minutes from now, release a live statement saying that it was NOT LEGAL under interplanetary law. This will destroy their sense of righteousness, and instead, instill a feeling that they're just getting what's coming to them. It will kill their morale at the worst possible time."

"Of course," the spymaster went on, "the statement is utter oil sludge. We are not signatories to any treaties with them, nor do we recognize their silly 'interplanetary laws.' This actually frees them to just do whatever, the same as we do. But in the overall climate of panic that is already going on there, combined with the chaos of suddenly receiving billions and billions of refugees, they won't have a chance to fact-check or give the claim much thought at all. And then their media outlets will go down on them to make SURE nobody debunks the claim in any widely-disseminated way."

Leader Megatron was very proud of his spymaster, whose diabolical mind had come up with the Machiavellian propaganda scheme. Soundwave definitely deserved a spot in the Hall of Great Connivers! Yet, he wouldn't be able to have the honor yet. For national security, this and any other traps Soundwave had planned had to remain secret until they were fully sprung. Such was the price of being the head of the espionage branch.

Megatron spoke again. "Right when the 'attorney general's' revelation has hit maximum dissemination, we will arrive. From there, it will be mostly standard warfare. General Carjack's Battalion will be taking a front-line position this time, instead of mopping up remaining vermin like usual." Carjack perked up, his engine speeding up in a smooth, pleased way. "That's right. You and your Battalion will hit the biggest city of the enemy's command world. Barge through all opposition and then slaughter all who dare to get within range of your path. Level it completely. We will be embedding several elite soldiers who can keep up with you into your group. These will be camera-bots, and will pirate-broadcast your latest genocide live across all civilian Galactipol stations. With ForIntel jamming out Galactipol's attempts at broadcasting, there will be nothing left to watch except your absolutely terrifying devastation of not only the city, but the troops and artillery that will be daring to try to defend it."

Over the next few hours, more plans were fleshed out and orders were given. Divisions were divided up into large regiments and each person present given one to command. Even Megatron's elite division was split, with him keeping the absolute best troops but temporarily allowing the others to be sent along with the two top Battle Commanders that had been chosen.

These Commanders would only hold official rank for the duration of the war - as was the practice in the Decepticon Military - but the fact that they'd been chosen at all would give them a lifetime advantage over their military lessers when it came time for appointments to government positions of all sorts. They would, of course, also gain much more respect within the Military and this would translate into many perks.

Finally, the time of planning was over. The Foreign Intelligence Division and the Bureau of Propaganda were both given the go, and their mission began immediately. Meanwhile, the Decepticon Military massed, and began to take off into the sky using uncharacteristically-disciplined formations. It was time for Galactipol to face the true might of an empire.

Domestic Intelligence Office

Swiftsure was both swift and sure, as for a while, he evaded DomIntel. He was able to get into one of his spares and take off before it could be disabled, forcing their agents to hunt him down. Unfortunately for him, the Supercomputer had been ordered to track all motion from all of his spares even before the agents got to them, so any of them that started going anywhere showed up as a blip in real-time as it passed from the range of one DomIntel surveillance device to another. Before long, undercover agents had tackled him before he knew what was going on, and he was brought in for interrogation.

When he refused to cooperate with the hacking, it didn't take long for the agents to torch their way through his panels and start their powerful anti-encryption program. However, by the time they got in, the relevant information had been totally deleted.

"Doing that only forestalls the inevitable," a DomIntel agent said with gravity. "I'm sure you've heard of 'forensic data recovery.' " They turned him off so he couldn't try anything else to eliminate the relevant information, and sure enough, through the use of advanced methods, the agents were able to restore the files - despite the fact that Swiftsure had tried to write over them with gibberish characters. He simply didn't have the time needed to add, delete, and re-add gibberish enough times to make his files irrecoverable. Soon enough, his fate was sealed.

"Throw him in the slag." The lead agent commanded. "Leader Megatron and the High Generals are busy with far more important matters than this chunk of junk."

When he begged to see his Coder again, his request was denied. As a traitor who had wanted to pass on information that would increase the threat level for millions, if not billions, of Decepticons, he would find that no Decepticon cared at all any more about his psychological comfort. They did, however, put said Coder under active (but covert) surveillance just in case he, too, was a traitor.

As ordered, Swiftsure was taken to the nearest foundry - a smaller one inside the town where he'd been captured - and thrown, not into the smelting pit with the good metal, but into the operation's pit of refining impurities that it accumulated throughout the day. The execution was holovised as usual, but this time, everyone watching just wanted the scene to go away so they could get back to the war news.

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

Earth

Venables soon found another cave, and at first, it seemed unoccupied. However, once he got his fire lit and the darkness of the cave's inner regions dissipated, he could make out the remains of a different fire. A few animal bones were in a pile toward the back. This was clearly already someone else's home...

[Vallermoore]

Domestic Intelligence Office

Swiftsure had been surprisingly hard to track down and arrest, but more to the point, there was no way that he would be allowed to talk to his Coder, after he tried to endanger almost the entire Decepticon Nation. Such was the disgust, that he was thrown into a smelting pit full of impurities. Once in the Decepticon Afterlife, he would be at once hurled into the Realm of Punishment, where he would be enslaved by biological life, amongst other foul fates. His Coder would earn a spot on Domintel's list to watch closely for signs of treasonous talk, actions, or both.

Earth

Venables drew his gun and advanced with care, expecting a wild human, a large bear, or even someone else who was taking the test at the same time and might see him as a rival, or think taking him out would help him pass his Immigration test. He was not going to let himself get taken by surprise.

Galactipol Confederation

Even before the Decepticons flew into view, as many as possible of the babies, children and other non-combatants had been evacuated as possible so that if the worst happened at least they would survive. Because of the danger the strict gun laws that normally existed were temporarily abandoned and almost all who wanted to were free to bear arms. Whilst they had a lot of weapons that could take out android bodies and Decepticons in plane mode, even though they had been preparing for it, they had relatively few laser cannons and other such weapons mounted on their home worlds that could take out full sized Decepticons once they had landed and transformed. Landing safely would be the hard bit. There were still small parts of the Galactipol Fleet still held in reserve, and there was a secret plan known only by a very few at the top of Galactipol. They had a hundred small space fighters, and two larger vessels near Cybertronian Space, one of which was a flying bomb capable of generating a short lived black hole that would last long enough to suck in and destroy Cybertron. They were heavily cloaked which was why they had not been discovered, but their best laid plans were about to come unstuck by chance.

Cybertron

MasterBlaster was happily orbiting Cybertron, staying a mile clear of the Government District and any other forbidden airspace, and thinking about how much he loved the Metal Planet because everything about it was perfectly designed for robotic life, when his eyes, which as Ultimate Mods could see through most forms of cloaking, picked out the small human attack force. Knowing he could not stop it all by himself, he dialed the Decepticon equivalent of 999 on the radio, used to report foreign invasion. Within minutes, powerful Decepticon radars found that his report was true, and the few soldiers on duty were scrambled, General Thundercracker at their head. The holovision summoned the gangs that were there to the scene to face the threat and defend the Metal Planet, which they did. MasterBlaster summoned his own gang for good measure and scanned the ships, detecting what looked like some kind of bomb on one of them. He took a blast that would have destroyed a normal body, but not his as it was from Ultimate Mods. Seeing General Thundercracker nearby, identified by his tail insignia, he dipped his nose in a salute and radioed the General.

On Vallermoore, relatively lowly people like him could certainly not speak to generals, who would take offence at being spoken to from anyone lower then a colonel, but in times of dire emergency like this, any Decepticon with important enough information could tell it to a High General or even to Megatron, and if the information was important enough, there would be no punishment handed down. The idea of letting important information get lost or mangled through passing up rank after rank went against Decepticon Military doctrine. MasterBlaster quickly but clearly in perfect Binary told General Thundercracker about the bomb of some kind in one of the ships. Surely a High General would know what to do to neutralize the threat, he thought to himself. And given the circumstances, surely Thundercracker would not want him punished for telling him such important news.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Foundry

It was rare that a condemnee was literally thrown in the slag pit - where the impurities were gathered - instead of a smelting pit. Usually, this was done when the traitor's Metal couldn't be taken to be disposed of on an asteroid instead. The foundrybot figured correctly that this was done because there was currently an active war. Even so, he was miffed about losing the value of the scrap metal, and quickly started to complain about the fuel that was effectively wasted by using it to melt someone into barely-saleable sludge.

He ended up getting 1,000 Cubes out of DomIntel for the extra firing of his slag pit's burners. This only cemented the traitor's status as pure scum. Usually, foundrybots paid FOR metal, even for funerals.

Later, the slag from that pit would be ground up into gravel-sized pieces and used as flooring in raid game arenas. It did come to some use, but not much, and was trod upon daily until it was too ground up by being stomped on for any further use. At that point, it was sent into space on a cargo-bot to be dumped out wherever that bot saw fit.

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

The Realm of Punishment

For Swiftsure, there was no tipoff of the realm he had been assigned to - at least, not yet. Instead, he found himself wandering a street in what seemed to be none other than the capital of the Galactipol Federation's command planet, and soon enough, a federal came up and asked him his business. Now, he was totally confused. He had just been executed, and in a humiliating way at that! Yet here he was on his original destination planet?!

"We are those who were defeated by the Decepticons in the first major conflict," the agent said, as if in explanation to Swiftsure's unspoken question. "And as you can imagine, we want to make sure that we are not defeated again here in this realm. Our Intelligence service has indicated that you have some data we might be interested in~?" The question hung in the air.

After just a bit more talking, Swiftsure was convinced. He was led to a large building, apparently set up just to fit him, where he met a bookish man looking over an actual large book. This man was set up on a very tall balcony so he was even with Swiftsure's head.

"Ah, yes. Our intel shows that you wanted a fief of your own, and immunity from our laws. We are prepared to provide such, in exchange for the Secrets..."

Swiftsure was beside himself. He would get his dream after all! Suddenly, he no longer cared that he was surely in an afterlife. This must be the Realm of Pleasure! As long as he got the power he wanted and would be the king of somewhere, who cares how it worked, he thought with excitement. He quickly spilled his guts about Decepticon jamming, eager to become King or Leader Swiftsure and then use his new fief as a base from which he and a big gang could raid the rest of this sucker Galactipol Federation. A plan to betray the Federation just like he'd done the Decepticons was already forming, too.

"As promised, we deliver you your new fief. Here you go," the accountant-looking agent said without cracking a smile. He pulled a large lever, and the floor opened out from under Swiftsure. Now, the robot realized that he had been betrayed. His jets refused to fire, and he soon reached terminal velocity as he plunged down what seemed to be a bottomless hole.

It took several hours of falling to fully reach his new destination - a ball of never-cooling molten iron. While he hadn't really had a whole planet built just for him even here in the Realm of Punishment, the molten ball he would be surrounded by for the next 100 years was indeed all his. His "new fief."

With a muffled splush, he hit the molten metal and then sank in. A clang was heard as a solid door closed over him, leaving him entombed in metal that would never cool.

He had been betrayed by the "agent" and tricked by the next guy. The sting of being on the wrong side of this behavior hurt him more than the endless melting, at least for a decent amount of time. Now, he had a taste of what it felt like to be on the receiving end.

100 years later, when someone finally opened the door and hoisted his supernaturally-preserved body from its excruciatingly-painful prison, he would find that he was not yet saved. Instead, he would be betrayed even worse, this time from someone who seemed totally loyal to him, and end up in a worse-yet environment as a result. Endless, brutal betrayals were the fate assigned to the traitor, and they would continue until he learned to value loyalty. The final result of each was always painful so that he would never be able to rationalize it as being okay.

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

Cybertronian Space

Whoops went up from the planet as it became clear that they would see action after all. Soon enough, Thundercracker and his division were in space. Not long after, he got a radio report about one of the ships having "some kind of a bomb" on it.

Thundercracker's face was hidden by his nose cone since he was in flight mode, but if it was showing, there would have been no mistaking the WTFs all over it. Warships usually had bombs on them! What would someone bother to radio him about that for?

"Um...yeah? Warships usually have those..." Thundercracker's voice came over the radio, with some confusion apparent. "What's so special about that?"

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

Earth

Venables made it all the way to the back of the cave without incident. There, he found a well-woven straw mat, a decent stack of wood, and even a wooden box that turned out to be an ancient-style icebox with about a half block of ice within. Above the ice chamber, but still within the box, there were a few slabs of ribs and a couple of steaks. A torch, currently not lit, was mounted on one wall. There was a fire pit dug into the ground below this spot. A bench made of three slablike stones, one for each leg and one for the seat, was along the back wall facing not only the pit, but the entrance to the chamber.

Before Venables could make his way back out, he heard footsteps entering the next room. They were calm, much like those of a person coming home after a regular day out. A dragging noise indicated that whoever it was likely had a carcass with him, though it didn't sound like an animal being dragged. Instead, it sounded like the carcass had been put on some sort of sledge for easier dragging.

The dragging noise stopped, and shortly after, there was a thud as the entire load was dropped. A tired sigh came. Now, the footsteps came toward the rear chamber much faster since their owner had lightened himself up. "I'll sure enjoy sitting my ass in front of the fire," the human thought silently to himself. He began to hum a tune as he stepped through the opening.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

MasterBlaster used the data pack he was given when he joined the Military, that enabled it's users to see what kind of bomb it was. "It's an XR Blackhole 1500! If that gets close enough to Cybertron and explodes , it'll create a black hole that will take out the whole of Cybertron and every bot on it!" He prepared to blast it, but got an angry message from General Thundercracker. "Don't you d...." It was too late, as MasterBlaster opened fire on the bomb, exploding it. It was still too far away from Cybertron to suck it in, and General Thundercracker and most bots either got out of the way in time or mind transferred in time. In a way, MasterBlaster had saved Cybertron, as the black hole was stationary and too far away to harm the Metal Planet, although it would be a menace to any nearby Decepticons until it either evaporated or more likely Megatron dealt with it, or at least moved it to where it could serve as a form of defence rather then blocking the direct route to Cybertron. MasterBlaster was too close to escape, along with a couple of other nearby bots, and was sucked in. Even Ultimate Mods armour had it's limits, although it stayed solid for a minute or two before it was crushed down to a tin can size and then to atoms. MasterBlaster tried to mind transfer out, but the black hole prevented even this.

Afterlife

MasterBlaster found himself in a small metal room with two other clearly angry bots, their eyes dim and their engines revving, and three screens on the wall. One was showing the Decepticon Realm of Pleasure, one the factory that was the Decepticon Neutral Realm, and one showed the tortures of the Realm of Punishment. "You stupid idiot!" snapped one of the bots, and blasted at MasterBlaster, only for his Ultimate Mods armour to absorb the blast. "You may be brawny enough, but you clearly didn't buy enough RAM from Ultimate Mods. I hope they send you to the Realm of Punishment!"

A white-armoured Decepticon Angel came in. "You will be given a few hours to see if someone activates one of your Save Discs. None of you three are traitors. MasterBlaster, if you do pass on, because of the special circumstances Leader Megatron will be informed what you did. On one hand, you did it with the best of intentions to protect Cybertron, and you certainly did, but you did it without thinking and against orders and got yourself and two other bots killed. It will be up to him if you go to the Realm of Pleasure for protecting Cybertron, the Neutral Realm for your sheer stupidity in how you did it, or even the Realm of Punishment for nearly killing High General Thundercracker. Forty more had to mind transfer and lost a body, including General Thundercracker, so if you are brought back through a Save Disc, Thundercracker will not be pleased with you to say the least, and might order Milintel after you if he is angry enough and can legally do so."

MasterBlaster knew the only bot who knew where his Save Discs were and might want to bring him back, would be SolarTempest, but he also knew that the last time he saw SolarTempest, he was very nearly killed and SolarTempest might well be happy that he was gone. If he was brought back, he might have an angry High General Thundercracker on his tail.

*****
The Realm of Punishment

Swiftsure would have plenty of time to learn just how badly disloyalty hurt, in a number of forms, from Decepticon to human and sapient pony, before, one day in the far future, he would be transferred to the Neutral Realm. Decepticon Hell was rarely for all eternity.

Earth

Venables decided to announce himself with his gun ready to shoot if things went bad. "Hello there? I'm trying to join the Decepticons. I'm not here to rob or kill you, despite what it looks like."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Above Cybertron

With the black hole bomb set off, it didn't take but a few minutes for the small Galactipol detachment to be sucked to its own doom inside the resultant gravity well. The Decepticons, except for those who had lost a body, seemed almost sad that they didn't get to kick more asses themselves. Soon enough, they returned to Cybertron and awaited any other enemy forces who decided to commit suicide-by-Decepticon.

Back on the Metal Planet, SolarTempest had no idea that anything all that serious had happened to his Coder, let alone that it was permanent. He and his gang therefore went back to his mansion and began playing idle games, waiting for the war to end so they could go raid stuff. There, in between game turns, they talked about the expansion of the Cybertronian Business Association and whether or not it should get into smuggling like the other syndicates, or perhaps get into something more classy, such as international stocks and bonds, and use their abilities to ensure that their trades always worked out well for them.

Meanwhile, MasterBlaster's gang knew that their leader was now offline because they saw his body get sucked into the temporary black hole. They would wait about a day to confirm that he was staying that way, and if he didn't show up, at least some of them would begin to duel each other for the now-open leadership position. If that happened, MasterBlaster would have to fight at least a few challengers in order to regain his spot.

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

Afterlife

MasterBlaster looked worried as the wait grew longer and longer. Leader Megatron was busy leading what was likely the biggest invasion the Decepticons had ever done against mortal foes, and he wasn't diverting any attention to matters like someone waiting for assignment to a new realm. Right now, Megatron had 10 front-line divisions under the command of himself, his High Generals, and his Commanders, and he was using his powers to get real-time data about all of them at once. When something unusual was detected, he would bark out orders about it before the Commanders even knew it was upcoming. Meanwhile, of course, he had to avoid getting himself blown away by the SAMs that were now coming at him in great numbers from the command planet he and his own division were now bombarding from low orbit.

Meanwhile, it was clear that MasterBlaster wasn't going to be restored in mere hours. He had no way of knowing whether or not this was intentional or even if SolarTempest knew he was dead. He held out hopes that his offspring just didn't know, but the idea that SolarTempest could be busily melting down his Saves also nagged at the back of his mind.

The other two bots did not have to wait so long. They were assigned to some better positions in the Neutral Realm, but deemed insufficiently exemplary for the Realm of Pleasure. Portals opened for them even as they continued to curse out MasterBlaster.

Of course, even being assigned to a new realm - except, perhaps, the Realm of Punishment - didn't ensure that a Decepticon would stay dead. Unless Megatron blocked it from working according to the default, restoration could be done at any time, as could reassignment to a different afterlife realm.

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

Earth

In response to his callout, Venables initially heard nothing. Then, to his surprise, he heard a flicking sound. A Bic lighter ignited, and almost instantly, it was used to light a large old-fashioned fire torch that illuminated the entire room and nearly blinded him with its suddenness. While he squinted, the cave-owner took the opportunity to put a rifle barrel in his face. Now, Venables could count on being shot back if he decided to fire. It would be its own micro-version of MAD.

"Oh, you are, huh?" The voice came. It seemed somewhat rough and not educated enough to be called posh, but it wasn't full-on ghetto either. There was a slight drawl to it. "And what would you want to join them for? You sick of cops?" The man's voice made it clear that he was suspicious of Venables' claim.

As Venables' eyes adjusted, he found himself looking at a tallish man of medium complexion whose clothes had seen better days, but at one point, would have been in the upper-middle range. These clothes no longer fit right. They had been tailored for a thin guy without many muscles, but during his time in Decepticon Earth, the man's muscles had grown significantly. He was now what would have, years ago, been described as "ripped."

The man's boots, on the other hand, were in far better condition. This was likely because he had brought some extra pairs when he came to this planet. He also had a belt with well-used, but not ancient, hunting, camping, and butchering tools. In his non-gun hand, he held his torch, which was apparently made with a wick saturated in animal fat.

Venables also saw, clearly now, that he was looking down the barrel of a well-maintained hunting rifle.

[Vallermoore]

Galactipol Battle

Galactipol was fighting it's hardest, and many a Decepticon was destroyed and sent back to the Military Save Vault in a stream of data packets, but the rest kept coming, confident that as they were loyal and fell in the service of the Military, they would be restored. One by one the outer planets fell, whilst the rulers of the inner planets, knowing that surrender meant slavery at best and death at worst and talking was not going to fix things, first got as many civilians out to other worlds as possible, and second did things like detonate other black hole bombs and other such unpleasant weapons out in space. General Soundwave suffered slight damage from one of these, losing a small part (small by Decepticon standards, that is,) of a wing. In human terms, it was like having a small part of the skin on one's forearm torn off. As he was not expecting anything to breach his armour it hurt like hell for a few seconds until he turned down his pain signals like most sensible bots did when entering battle.

In one of the libraries, they were searching for some means of at least temporarily destroying Megatron's godly powers. If they could kill him, the whole Decepticon Nation would turn in on itself.

Afterlife

Until the moment they went to slightly ok positions in the Neutral Realm, the two bots carried on cussing and cursing out MasterBlaster in extremely rude terms as his stupidity had ended their lives. MasterBlaster decided to play his games (which he set to turn off if an angel bot, a devil bot, or even Megatron himself showed up) looked at his Manuals, and thought about his life. With no way to radio SolarTempest and no way of knowing SolarTempest's reaction if he could, it seemed very likely that the Neutral Realm, possibly with a slightly better position then mere machinery, would be his lot. Whilst he had probably saved Cybertron, a plus, he had got himself killed and very nearly killed High General Thundercracker as well, two big minuses.

Cybertron

There was a knock on the door of SolarTempest's mansion, and two bots went to the door. Whilst they didn't just open it and start blasting, they were certainly ready to. "Who are you, and what on Cybertron are you doing here?" They frowned at the bot that stood there, fearing he might be a thief of some kind or someone else unpleasant, as he was not one of them.

"My name is Haula, and I have business with SolarTempest." He bowed to them. "I'm no threat to you."

At the world "business" they decided to let him in. For all they knew, SolarTempest might know this Haula well, in which case he wouldn't be very happy if a friend of his lost a body for no reason at all. "Come in, but any stupid stuff, and you'll be going out as a stream of data packets." They took him up to SolarTempest, who looked at him coldly, but without hate in his eyes, curious at this visitor who dared to come to meet him face to face.

Haula said "MasterBlaster was killed outright in defending Cybertron against a black hole bomb and...I'm in his gang and thought you might want to restore your Coder, as if anyone knows where his Saves are it would be you." What he didn't say, was that he hoped that if MasterBlaster was restored he, Haula, would get a rich reward from MasterBlaster for saving him.

Apart from SolarTempest and SteelHard, the gang were almost universally hostile from the start to the idea. "Why restore your Coder? He tried to take over your gang, and you had to threaten to blow him to pieces to be rid of him. Let him stay dead." one said. Only one said something differently. SteelHard said "He was your Coder, and he did Code you into the world and help keep you safe before you were fully sapient. I'm neutral on the idea, I just think you should think of the good of MasterBlaster as well as the bad. If you think he is better dead, I'm fine with that; but if you think the other way, as you are the Leader of this gang, none of us should try and stop you." SolarTempest's fans started running, a sign in temperate areas that a Decepticon was engaged in deeper then normal thought.

Earth

Venables found himself in a firearm version of MAD very quickly.

"I'm no friend of the cops. That's one of the reasons why I want to join the Decepticon Nation. I'm trying to pass the physical test without getting killed or enslaved in the process. I helped the Decepticons from the very start when they started attacking the police.
Do you want to become a Decepticon too?"