An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

Game Deck's House

As soon as DeathStrike fired his foot jets, dramatic music began to play through a speaker system. Boss music.

If DeathStrike was into games, he would realize that while this was boss music, it wasn't final boss music. GameDeck was signaling that this wasn't his best body, but that this encounter would very much be a challenge.

DeathStrike easily cleared the pit, only to see that each large tile of the floor appeared as if it, too, could open up. The reality was probably that only some of the tiles could open. However, he didn't know which ones those are, and GameDeck did. This meant that GameDeck could walk confidently, while DeathStrike would be taking a chance anywhere he dared to land.

Before he could think about that much, blaster fire came out of the smoky room. The smoke was starting to dissipate, but not to the point where it was easy to see who or what was firing.

"You seem awfully motivated for a robber," GameDeck's voice came from a spot behind a still-thick area of smoke. "And most people don't hate a maker of safe, external game machines. Perhaps you wish to be a competitor~?" He almost seemed to sigh. "There are so many of those...always trying to interfere with my market share. It is such a waste of metal. Decepticon Steel is too good to use for game decks, and foundries pay too little for such advanced bodies as yours. It's such a hassle to drag the carcasses to a chop shop. But oh well."

At this, the light of a fusion cannon blast lit up the area as it headed straight for DeathStrike.

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

Grease's House/CBA Headquarters

Once Grease got back near Cybertron, some raiders thought that his little plane would be easy pickins. After all, it was just a Cessna-looking thing! Only when they tried to attack, and he activated the boosters, did they realize that it had to be a native-built aircraft. He easily dodged them all and headed home, as if it was all in a day's work.

After he landed in the street outside of his house, he taxied up his walkway and got out right at the door. There, he activated a hidden panel that let him get through in his human-sized body even though it couldn't activate the main lock. He knew that nobody would expect a door-within-a-door that was smaller than the equivalent of a pet door, and even if they did find it, only another android body would be able to fit through. Therefore, he hadn't even put a lock on this little door.

Next, he eagerly ran to the room where he kept his main Decepticon body. This door also had a special android-sized door specifically so he could get through while using this tiny form. As soon as he was inside, he climbed up the leg of his workbench table and then acrobatically flipped himself to the tabletop. He sat down quickly, and a smile came on his face just before the android body slumped over, apparently dead.

With a rev, Grease's regular body came online, and the eyes lit up. "Aaahhh," he said out loud, relishing the feeling of power granted by his huge, familiar engine and the feeling of stability that came with 10 tons of metal. Sneaking around and getting into places as if he was actual grease was fun, but there was nothing like a REAL Decepticon body. He stepped forward, and admired his standard body in a mirror. Its shiny metal with its perfectly-smooth paint job was a sight for sore eyes. And the eyes! Red and glowing, and wide and flat, like they should be. Not all wet-looking, or limited to a puny "pupil" that had to be swiveled around to see everything. Every time he went out, he was excited to scout and learn. But every time he came back, it was with a renewed appreciation for his proper Cybertronian body.

After drinking some Supreme to celebrate another successful mission, he returned to CBA Headquarters and gave his report. He listed not only the two main nations of interest, but several others that only had small towns and limited development. "These are of interest because they often get foreign aid from the wealthy nation," he said. "We could easily set up an NGO and claim some of that money, and by the time they realize it's fake, we'll be long gone. Or, we could set up a real NGO, but use our technology to make it so that it costs us way less than the donors expect it to. Of course, we'd pocket the difference."

Then, he described the needs and desires of the dirty city. "That's in a country that only cares about making money. Or, at least, its government cares. It's skimming about 90% of the profits, leaving the workers quite broke. What they NEED is, as expected, a variety of chemotherapy drugs thanks to all of the carcinogens being spewed into its air and water. We're in luck with that because the people actually realize this need! Their government isn't delivering...which leaves us. The people there who don't need this, WANT things. Opium in particular. It makes them feel mellow and forget about their worries. Opium, rather than heroin, is old-fashioned by many planets' standards. But it's what's popular there."

"In the rich area, they're all about buying bonds. They don't like stocks, which many of them think are too risky. We can set up all sorts of pyramid schemes, fake bond issues, and stuff like that."

"Corruption-wise, as you'd expect, the greedy government officials in the factory city are eager to take bribes. But it's really risky to try to bribe the other country's officials. Some are corrupt, but many will turn you in instead of taking the money."

SolarTempest gave the information serious consideration. While he had nothing against selling recreational drugs, he knew that if he sold chemo medicine, he'd get people who owed their very lives to the Cybertronian Business Association. This could get them and their loved ones to strongly support the CBA, and therefore, be cooperative when the CBA added opium to its list of available products. In fact, with enough goodwill, the population would "not see" anything illegal going on, and might even give the cops false information that would send them on wild goose chases if need be.

Soon, the CBA would begin making flights, working to set up operations in Enbadia using android bodies, and paying key government officials to not only ignore their own operations, but take action against any competitors that might be there.

The CBA would work on setting up scam operations in Mahalokia later, along with obtaining monopolies on key legitimate services. For now, Enbadia was the low-hanging fruit, so that's where the focus would begin.

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

Dream World

"Have you ever heard of Sand Puppeteers?"

That was what Fire Eater had said. Loyal Star couldn't make much sense of the question, and could only answer, "no..."

"They have these long, thin tentacles, and they use them to control huge puppet bodies. Then they use these to lure in their prey, which ends up being so busy talking to the puppets that it misses what's coming up behind it..."

At that exact moment, Loyal Star realized that he was actually talking to a puppet and that the Sand Puppeteer must be right behind him! He tried to turn around, but before he could get all the way into position, thick kraken-style tentacles wrapped around him, and he found himself being quickly yanked towards a huge open beak big enough to chop him into bits with just a couple of bites. On each side of him, the Warfire and Fire Eater puppets laughed, but not in the voices of the originals. Now, the laugh was very animalistic, sort of like hyena laughter.

[Vallermoore]

Game Deck's House

Despite the danger of losing a body, DeathStrike decided to fly in and do battle. If he lost, he would hire other Decepticons to help him go after GameDeck, rather then fail at his job. He wanted to be able to be viewed as totally reliable after all. As he flew in a fusion cannon blast was triggered, and although he dodged a direct hit, he got the equivalent of a deep flesh wound down one side. Turning his pain signals down to a dull ache, he opened fire at his foe in return, hoping to inflict some damage on his foe. He didn't announce he was a Problem Solver. At that moment, nothing mattered to him but defeating his target. Only the sound of the invasion siren would have made him break off his attack. In such a case, even Problem Solvers and their targets would fight against the common foe. He used infa-red to try and pierce the smoke to find his foe.

Dream World

Being a former pony Loyal Star could understand Equish perfectly.

"Have you ever heard of Sand Puppeteers?"

"No..."

"They have these long, thin tentacles, and they use them to control huge puppet bodies. Then they use these to lure in their prey, which ends up being so busy talking to the puppets that it misses what's coming up behind it..."

Loyal Star found himself wrapped around with tentacles the size of a kraken, and pulled towards a beak that seemed capable of even piercing Decepticon Steel. He opened fire with his blasters on these biological tentacles expecting to slice straight through them. He assumed that Fire Eater and High Priest Warfire had just lost a body each.

*****
When Grease got back with his report and got into a proper sized body again, SolarTempest was very pleased to get the information, paid him well for it and congratulated him on his work for the CBA. He decided that in some areas they would sell drugs of the illegal variety, whilst in others they would sell medical drugs to heal people and gain their support. Whilst rivals and narks would need to be killed, violence for the sake of it should be avoided, as they wanted to operate undercover. They could also set up various kinds of scams-and all of this would enrich the CBA in general and SolarTempest in particular. It would take a few days to get things set up.

*****
A plane. In space.

Not a Decepticon, but in plane mode, he seemed like one except for the horse head crests where proper Decepticon Seals should be. He came from a planet named Phanos, that had once been a sapient pony planet. The ponys developed tech, and then modern tech, and eventually become cyborgs, and then made the jump to become bots, but they kept what they considered to be the best things of the pony race, like the herd mentally that made friendship common. Whilst domestic raiding on their planet was banned, raiding other planets happened occasionally although they were more likely to make friends first. If a planet refused to make friends, or their tech level was low, they were not above invading or indeed annexing it and they had a small empire. Iron Bell, for such was his name, was a scout for a pony syndicate, whose crime was tolerated as long as it was committed outside Phanos and the planets that it controlled, so he was more Decepticon in nature then most bots of his kind. When he saw the Metal Planet, gleaming like a great ball bearing in space, he decided to investigate and see if it was inhabited or not. He put on cloaking just in case of attack and flew in quite fast, decloaking once he penertrated the atmosphere, and landing in what was a middle class area. When he transformed, he turned into a Decepticon size pony-bot on four hooves, a cutie mark of a magnifying glass on his side, his eyes a deep blue, although he could change their color if he wanted or needed to. As soon as he did that, he got a lot of stares from the pedestrians, and the looks didn't seem very friendly.

[Victorious Decepticons]

GameDeck's House

DeathStrike's infrared vision easily spotted the large blob of heat that signified the presence of a running Decepticon engine, about 50 feet off the ground over to the left and about five steps away. This positioning was expected since GameDeck's Energon tank and limbs weren't hot, but the engine was. Confirming his assumption was the heat signature of a tube running down from the engine to between where the hip junction would be - GameDeck's exhaust pipe. A small, less-dense cloud of heat emerged from the end of the tube where the exhaust was exiting.

Now, he figured he had him. He opened fire at a point a few feet above the hottest part, aiming for the motion boards in his target's chest. He heard two noises which signified that he had made solid hits. A shout of angry pain, followed by the heat moving in a staggering dodging motion, confirmed it. However, the target did not fall down.

Soon after this happened, the boss music intensified, as if it was controlled by some kind of AI that could tell how the fight was going. Was it meant to be threatening to DeathStrike, or motivating for GameDeck? Perhaps it was meant to do both...

Suddenly, the heat blob dropped just a bit, but instead of ending up on the floor, shooting noises were heard. Then, DeathStrike heard several, perhaps hundreds, of what sounded like little balls bouncing off of the ceiling. He was wondering what the heck, but an instant later, he began to find out. He was pelted from all angles by ricocheting little bombs, each of which did just a bit of damage when they contacted him.

"Winning one hit point at a time is still winning!" GameDeck said, clearly not as calm as he originally was.

DeathStrike laughed to himself just a bit. Did his target really think that real life functionality worked that way? That he had a set amount of hit points, and that a million little bombs - none of which had a chance of penetrating all of his armor - would beat him? He re-aimed his blasters and fired several times, making sure to hit the same spot (in relation to the heat blob of the engine) as often as possible. THIS was how to do a multi-blast attack, not by sending out a slew of uncontrolled bomblets to hit all different spots!

"Hey, quit with the OP attacks! That's no fun at all!" GameDeck complained as he found himself not agile enough to dodge most of the fire. "You're supposed to try to figure out the bomb pattern and then try to dodge 'em! Don't you know how games wo~~"

With that, the heat blob finally went down almost, but not quite, to the floor. DeathStrike was skeptical about the apparent sudden weakness of his foe. After all, Decepticons didn't typically get weak before death. They malfunctioned, but in a machine way. That made it so that it was more likely for parts to seize and make the target have trouble moving, rather than "sagging to the ground" like a biological. DeathStrike listened closely, and realized that he heard no slipping belts or clunking, broken parts. GameDeck was surely faking, even though he had definitely suffered some damage.

Now, DeathStrike re-aimed his blasters to point directly at the heat blob, and fired long blasts at full power. Perhaps if he shut that engine down, GameDeck really wouldn't be able to get back up.

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

Cybertron

The newcomer was met not so much with curiosity, but instant hostility. He was not only a robot with an un-Decepticon build, with the wrong seals on the wings that were now attached above his front shoulders and folded partway back, but most importantly, he sported blue eyes. They were a bit darker than the expected, but everyone - even the youngest non-sapient child - knew that Autobots had that eye color.

After a moment of seething silence, a few of the onlookers leveled their blasters at Iron Bell.

"Die, Autobot-loving scum!"

Iron Bell had just enough chance to look at the one who said that when the speaker opened fire.

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

Dream World

To Loyal Star's horror, his blasts did nothing, and he was pulled right into the thing's beak. The creature was so large that he couldn't really tell what it even was. All he could see was the tentacles, the giant maw, and what appeared to be fur-covered flesh around the maw area. Meanwhile, the sound of hyena-like laughter became louder, until it blocked out all other sounds. It also seemed as if instead of two laughing voices, there were now hundreds of different ones.

An instant later, he was being bitten, and in three quick chops, he was turned into swallowable bits. Still, for reasons he didn't know or even think about, he remained fully conscious. He saw his legs get popped into the mouth, and then his torso, and then, his entire field of vision was filled with the sight of the inside of this thing's mouth as his head was gobbled down. After that, all light was blocked, yet he could still somehow perceive the strong, cartilaginous bands of muscle in the throat as they pulled him down into the stomach.

Normally, this would be the end of the scene for anything eaten like this, but here in the Dream World, it wasn't over yet. The next thing he knew, he was in excruciating pain as he dropped into highly corrosive stomach acid. He could even feel particles of his materials come away as the acid did its work, and his consciousness dissipating as the process took place...

[Vallermoore]

GameDeck's House

GameDeck's body gave up as he blasted it across the boards, but GameDeck had two other spares, both of them stronger then this one, as well as half a dozen spares-one in his factory office, three in his house and two in his Coder's house, and he was on good terms with his Coder too. One of the spares was in his bedroom, which was where GameDeck came back to life-now extremely angry at losing one of his bodies. This new body had small plates of armour from Ultimate Mods over his joints, and over the Decepticon equivilent of the heart and brain-the fuel pump and the mind boards. GameDeck was not rich enough to afford an entire Ultimate Mods body, but he did have stronger blasters on this one. As DeathStrike carefully flew in, avoiding the floor tiles and watching out for fusion cannon blasts, GameDeck changed the music in his house and decided to deal with his foe, who was surely injured partly from the last battle. He was pretty sure this foe was more then a strong-arm burglar, that was for sure. DeathStrike started to fly upstairs with his foot jets.

Cybertron

Even the Decepticon equivalent in what in biological terms would be a squalling newborn baby automatically knew that blue eyes in robot bodies meant Autobots or those who supported them. Tourists were tolerated, so the Seals by themselves would not necessarily by themselves cause blasting, but those blue eyes were seen as a symbol of evil. For a moment, the random Decepticons just stared, shocked. "Die, Autobot-loving scum!" As he was blasted at, Iron Bell flicked his eye colour from blue to red, blasted back two or three times-just to show he would fight back, then cloaked himself, took off and flew a mile or two away, hoping he was not being followed. He had taken about 10% damage from several onlookers blasting at once, but was still properly functional. Carefully, he decloaked, landed and once more transformed, this time with his eyes glowing red rather then blue. He wondered if the onlookers this time would try and kill him on sight. If not, he would use some of his own version of Energon Supreme to try and get his wounds quickly repaired, and then look around for a couple of hours before flying back home and see what this place was like. The looks he got this time were not quite "Kill On Sight." This might possibly be a Decepticon on his way back from infiltrating somewhere, after all. But they were hardly friendly looks either. At least some suspected him of being a foreigner, and him being a robot did not mean they wouldn't try to scam, hurt, kill or even enslave him, even more so if he angered them with what he did or said.

Dream World/Reality

Loyal Star woke, ran his Bravery Up, put the dream in a Dream File and decided that when he next saw Fire Eater he would ask him if Sand Puppeters were real or not. If they were and they could damage Decepticons he didn't want to lose a body to one of them.

[Victorious Decepticons]

GameDeck's House

DeathStrike knew he hadn't yet won when the music changed to a foreboding theme. Once he was past the suspicious-looking tiled area, he landed and began to creep down the hallway. The further he went in, the more the smoke that had been in the other room faded, allowing for better vision. However, the view wasn't what occupied his attention right now. As soon as the sound of his own jets faded, he heard the sounds of an engine in battle mode. It was coming from one of the rooms, and it was clear that if he went in that door, his prize would be a face full of energy fire.

He began to reach for a grenade, intending to deliver the surprise instead of getting it, when a hidden, sliding door directly to his right whipped upwards with a bang. Immediately, he was being blasted by the angry GameDeck, who was carefully aiming at his already-damaged side. DeathStrike spun around to face his foe, and in the process, better protect his weak spot. He noticed that now, he could feel air flowing in through a part of his body that didn't originally have a vent. Without making any outward acknowledgement of the increased damage level, he opened fire, only to find that strikes to the head did little damage.

Seamlessly, DeathStrike re-aimed toward the chest, intending to take out the motion boards. If he could deactivate those, he could then jump on his foe and possibly bash him into a pile of twisted metal. Without working motion boards, GameDeck would be clumsy for at least a while, and it could be long enough for DeathStrike to gain an insurmountable advantage. DeathStrike didn't even try to hit the fuel pump, which was not in the chest area, but somewhere in or near the Energon tank. He knew that most Decepticons not only armored their Energon tanks, but had extra layers of heat-dispersing material in order to greatly reduce the risk of being blown up in battle by a low-skilled attack or a lucky hit.

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

Cybertron

Iron Bell managed to evade the original attackers, who hadn't been truly ready for a fight. They didn't get their anti-cloaking detection systems going in time, and by the time he did, he was too far away for a chase to have a good chance of working.

This, however, wasn't the only group who had noticed him. As soon as the words "Die, Autobot scum!" were picked up by the outdoor DomIntel bugs, the Supercomputer set off an alarm that alerted several fast-response agents. Whenever someone engaged in battle while calling the other guy an Autobot, DomIntel regulations demanded immediate investigation in case there was either an actual Autobot present or an active traitor acting under their name. Within seconds, the relevant surveillance video was watched, and the newcomer's obviously-unique shape noted. Then, as soon as he decloaked, the DomIntel Supercomputer matched his appearance to the prior video, updated its file, and sent the information to the fast-response team.

As Iron Bell checked out his new location, three bots openly landed in the vicinity and one came in with his cloaking on. The latter bot decloaked between some buildings, and moseyed out as if he'd just been walking around to kill time. He appeared to be a bit bored, but then "noticed" the odd shape of Iron Bell's body. Secretly, he also noted that the eye color had changed, and used his internal radio to send in an update.

The other agents were about to approach Iron Bell, but they noticed that a few of the civilian locals were already on their way to approach him as well. The agents held back, waiting to see what would happen.

"Where'd you get that thing?" One of the locals said, clearly thinking it was at least somewhat inferior. "Well, never mind. It's clear that you need a much better body, wouldn't you say? For just 1,000,000 Cubes, I'll get you set up with something respectable."

The DomIntel agents secretly radioed their base, and soon, they had confirmation that this guy was not really in the body business. If the foreigner forked out the Cubes, the "body seller" would just fly away laughing. They waited to see if Iron Bell would be foolish enough to fall for it...

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

Dream World

Loyal Star dreamed that he had awakened and updated his Dream File, but in reality, it was a false awakening. He noticed nothing amiss as he flew to the Main Temple, but once he walked inside, he got a foreboding feeling.

This time, he paid close attention to the feeling, and quickly backed away from the Priest Entrance he had been planning to go in. As he did so, he heard what sounded like Megatron's engine. When he looked around, he saw Megatron, but instead of his usual expression, the leader had a slightly twisted, sadistic grin.

"I need something from you..." 'Megatron' said. "The Temple of Lost Souls is running low on power. I now require your soul to keep it running at full strength." He held out a Grand Soul Gem and began to speak an incantation. Loyal Star felt everything around him start to spin...

[Vallermoore]

Dream World

Loyal Star thought he had woken up, but he had just dreamed that he had woken up. As he flew to the Main Temple nothing seemed abnormal-there were no sapient ponies flying about like in the dream, and no more violence then the normal violence that was part of Decepticon society when bots quarreled. He bothered no bot and no bot bothered him, but when he reached the First Temple he sensed that something was wrong. To his surprise, he encountered his God, and bowed low at once to show respect. Megatron had a nasty smile on his face and held up a Soul Gem, announcing "I need something from you...The Temple of Lost Souls is running low on power. I now require your soul to keep it running at full strength." Although shocked, Loyal Star did not try and use his own pony magic to fight back, as it was, as far as he knew, his God's will. He blacked out and found himself when he woke in a place he had heard of as a pony priest but never visited-the Crystal Empire of Equestria-not occupied by Decepticons as he knew he surely should be, but as it was before the invasion, with Crystal ponies walking around. To his horror he found himself on four hooves instead of two feet. He was no longer a Decepticon robot, but a sapient pony once more. He twitched his tail about, and looked at his cutie mark, which was a gleaming Decepticon Seal that was fur, but gleamed like metal.

Noticing nasty looks from his fellow ponies, he galloped away and soon came across a house he recognized-his house that was supposingly in Vallermoore, now transplanted to here, the door ajar. Going inside and shutting the door, his jaw dropped. His mother and father, the same ponies he had blasted earlier when they had rejected him, were in the sitting room. Flicking his tail so it at least partly covered his cutie mark, he went up to them, wondering how they would react. "Mum....Dad....hello! It's me, your son, Loyal Star." He wondered if they were changelings, but had no changeling detector, and if they were ponies, it would be rude to cast a changeling detection spell on them. He waited to see how they would react to him. Would they be friendly, hostile, or somewhere in between?

*****
Cybertron

After what had happened with Sky Knight, Domintel was on the watch to make sure no Autobot or even false Autobot with their beliefs could arise, so when the words "Die, Autobot scum!" was heard, agents were sent to check things out. When he was offered a cheap new body, Iron Bell politely replied "Thank you for the offer, but I just have the Energon in my body's cargo containers. I'm going to buy some metal strips to repair myself." He went into a nearby repair shop that sold such things, that were normally used like biologicals used bandages for temporary repair until they could properly fix things. As it turned out, his Energon burnt as well as Energon Supreme, and his Binary, although it had a slight "horsey" accent, was understandable. No sooner had he fixed himself, when the Domintel agents showed up closely around him. They were unmarked as Domintel agents-although they could formally identify themselves if need be-but he knew something was wrong. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "I'm just looking around this planet, that's all, and just for at most a day or two, and then I'll fly back to my own planet. Yes, I got into a fight, but I didn't start it, the other bots just looked at me and opened fire whilst calling me an "Autobot" whatever that is."

GameDeck's House

When the music changed DeathStrike knew that his foe had a spare body. His own body, although it had some battle damage, was still able to fight well so he carried on, now on foot. He heard the sounds of an engine in battle mode. As he reached for a grenade, he was attacked and damaged through a hidden door, but reacted by blasting his foe's motion boards, taking out at least half of them, a few of them being extra armoured up. Then he was on his foe, kicking, punching, bashing, trying to get a shot in now and then. If he had the tail from Ultimate Mods he was hoping to buy, he could sting his foe and end the battle right then and there, but he had to go on hammering on his foe, trying to in effect beat him to death whilst Game Deck fought back as well as he could and cursed and swore in a rage, knowing he might have only one body left soon.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

At this, one of the agents deactivated the specialized cloaking he had been using to hide his DomIntel seal.

"I'm with Domestic Intelligence," he introduced himself, "and one of our tasks is to investigate anything that seems to be a serious accusation of an Autobot presence. We detected those who attacked you referring to you that way. We noticed that your earlier images had you with blue eyes. Those are what drew the fire - those, and your obviously non-Decepticon body."

"The Autobots," the agent went on, "were our bitter enemies for the centuries-long Great War. While we believe all of the real ones to be extinct, occasionally someone gets the idea of trying to bring back the Autobot Way. We make sure that such plans never succeed."

About now, Iron Bell noticed that the other bots who had just landed seemed suspiciously similar to this one. He figured that they, too, were undercover DomIntel agents. They just hadn't chosen to show their agency seals yet.

The agent spoke again. "So, when did you come here, and from where? And where did you enter Cybertronian space? If we can confirm your arrival in our records, it will be much easier for you. If not, we will have to code-read you to find out what's going on...and possibly, dismantle you enough to make sure that your internal parts really are not of Cybertronian origin. Of course, we would reassemble you...IF it turns out that you're legit, that is."

It was obvious to Iron Bell that it would be best if he cooperated, and thereby avoided both code-reading and investigative disassembly. While they hadn't told him much about the Autobots, the fact that they had spent centuries in a war against them was enough to let him know that the agents wouldn't be playing around about wanting to make sure he wasn't one.

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

GameDeck's House

GameDeck was quite shocked to find himself being pummeled with brute force. While he'd heard of biologicals doing that, and even made sure his game decks were compatible with some games that featured such assaults, it was still a very unusual form of attack on Cybertron. This robot who was attacking him seemed to be quite good at it, too. He made sure to stay so close to GameDeck that the latter couldn't properly aim his blasters. When he tried, the barrels harmlessly jutted past DeathStrike's body, and like most Decepticons, GameDeck used a type that couldn't be retracted for ultra-short-range firing.

As was typical in such fights, it wasn't the direct action of the pounding fists that started to do the serious damage. Instead, it was the way the blows made GameDeck's head bang into the floor, sending shockwaves through everything within it. After a few minutes, his boards began to loosen within their frame, and GameDeck knew that it wouldn't be much longer before they got loose enough to start breaking their connections to each other or their power supply, taking them offline or at least making them useless to his system as a whole.

GameDeck was quite furious. This "real life" thing always was bullshit, he silently thought to himself. The enemy characters could attack in any way they wanted, instead of according to a predetermined script, and that made it aggravatingly difficult. There was only one thing he could do now. He concentrated the best he could, and gave the mental command to his body: TGM.

Toggle God Mode. Every gamer knew of a command that worked like this, but few had managed to come up with one that would work for the game, Real Life. However, GameDeck, 10 million Cubes, and Ultimate Mods had come together one night, and one of the most unique modifications on Cybertron had soon come to be. It wasn't all that difficult of a mod, per se, but it was one that few had thought of. This creativity made it very effective when the timing was right.

This mod greatly enhanced the capabilities of the standard Size and Density Changer to allow for a combination of massive size growth and an equally-large change in density. Basically, it spread the user's density out across a much larger space, while using advanced technology to keep the user from being blown away by a normal wind or other environmental hazard. An enemy could, if prepared, use his jets or other means to generate enough force to dissipate the user - but only if he expected the change and was ready with the right kind of attack.

Defeating that risk was easy. All the user had to do was avoid using it on a prepared enemy. Instead, he was best off if he waited for an attack from an unsuspecting foe - one such as DeathStrike.

Suddenly, GameDeck's body went from being a solid object to one that was 10 times bigger - and intangible. DeathStrike fell right through it to the floor, managing to take out two boards along the way simply because his body contacted them and caused shorts. By the time DeathStrike realized he wasn't where he expected to be, but on the floor instead, GameDeck managed to pull to one side, shrink back down, and become solid again.

While DeathStrike was still wondering wtf, GameDeck opened fire on DeathStrike's damaged side for all he was worth. The small hole the assassin had detected earlier immediately became a huge one, and not long after that, the blaster fire reached his engine and blew a hole in the head. Instantly, DeathStrike's combustion chambers suffered from massive decompression, causing his engine to generate no actual power even though it was still working. Not long after that, it overheated tremendously, and oil smoke and coolant steam both billowed out all over. Of course, this also sent a blast of excruciating pain through DeathStrike's system.

Through the clouds of smoke and steam, DeathStrike then saw GameDeck's gleaming red eyes surrounded by their white starburst paint. An instant later, he saw two powerful blasts come at him...

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

DeathStrike reactivated in his spare body, glad to be alive but raging about having lost the fight and his other body. He knew that if GameDeck seriously examined that body, he could uncover the ICC Problem Solver Seals. He hoped that his foe wouldn't bother being that inquisitive.

Initially, he had planned to hire someone else to do the job if he didn't win, but he rethought that. Surely he was good enough to do it himself - he shouldn't chicken out just because of one fluke!! He would just have to think of a better way to attack, or perhaps, a way to get a better body.

As he was stewing, he remembered how GameDeck had complained about having to take advanced-build bodies to a chop shop in order to get good prices for them. His eyes brightened just a bit. This meant that DeathStrike probably wouldn't just take his old body to a foundry - and that meant that there was a chance of being able to get his old body back so he could fix it and make it his again!!

It also meant that, at least for a while, GameDeck would be laden down with DeathStrike's deactivated body...and therefore, ripe for an attack from the air...

DreamWorld

At first, Loyal Star's "mother and father" stayed still, not reacting at all. He was just wondering if something had happened to them when they both moved toward him, quite stiffly and unnaturally. Then, he saw their cutie marks: Red, burned-looking Autobot Seals.

"Die Decepticon" They said simultaneously, in emotionless 'robotic' voices that sounded like mindless AIs. Together, they lifted their tails over their backs and aimed them at Loyal Star in an unnatural sort of way. That's when he saw that the tips of their tails were actually blaster barrels.

Almost automatically, Loyal Star put through the command to fire his own blasters, as if he was still in his Decepticon body. Blaster barrels popped out of his sides, and immediately, holy fusion fire burst forth and hit each target. The two 'parents' stopped moving, their emotionless blank expressions now frozen on their faces. Then, slowly, they turned gray and fell apart into particles, like ashen statues that could not hold their shapes.

"I knew you would be loyal." A deep, almost calming robotic voice said from behind. "Unfortunately for you, you are loyal to the wrong one. Now, you must be punished for your mistake."

Loyal Star turned around, intending to blast whoever this devil was and further cement his entry into the Realm of Endless Energon when that time came. To his shock, he found himself looking up, far up, at a being he'd only read about in the Book of Megatron and the Decepticon history chips: Optimus Prime. The enemy leader towered over him in his pony form, and he already had his plasma rifle out and aimed.

Prime fired, and Loyal Star's little pony body stood no chance against that much energy. In an instant, he found himself in the Room of Three Screens...

[Vallermoore]

DreamWorld

Slowly, Loyal Star's "parents" swung around to face him and as they did so he noticed their cutie marks-not the normal holy Ponyist marks that they had earned in life, but Autobot Seals that seemed as if they had been put on with a brand. They raised their tails up above their heads and replied in robotic voices that sounded mindless "Die Decepticon!" As blasters came out of their tails Loyal Star sent an urgent prayer up to Megatron for holy fusion fire, and it was answered. Blasters that he didn't know he had sprung out of his sides to his joy, and he blasted them into dust. At once a voice spoke behind him in Binary that sounded friendly. "I knew you would be loyal. Unfortunately for you, you are loyal to the wrong one. Now, you must be punished for your mistake." He spun around and found himself looking at...a huge metal foot. He looked up, and up, and up...at a mighty bot, that was no Decepticon. To a Megatronist Priest, it was the equivilent of seeing Satan up close, for he was looking at Optimus Prime, a being he had only heard about in the Decepticon History chip and the Book of Megatron. Great pony-sized cold blue eyes glared down icily at him. Before he could try and mind transfer, or puut in another prayer for holy fusion fire, a plasma rifle like a battleship's gun aimed at Loyal Star and fired, destroying him utterly.

He found himself, still in this pony body, in the Room of Three Screens, a place he had read about and even been to once, although he remembered nothing of it. One screen showed Heaven, for the best of the best, one the more unpleasant part of the Neutral Realm, a place that in fact could very between near heavenly and near hellish, and one, the dreaded Realm of Punishment. Unlike many religious believers, Loyal Star certainly didn't assume he would be heaven bound, but he did think his saving of Megatron would be a major plus in his favour-unless he had somehow ended up in an Autobot version of the afterlife. He took a look to see the Seals of those in Heaven. If they were Autobot Seals, then he was in serious trouble. The Autobots might turn him into a pony again and extradite him to the pony demons for everlasting torture, or they might put him in their own hell. If they were Decepticons in the Realm of Pleasure, then he considered that he didn't have that much to fear.

Cybertron

When one of the bots revealed himself to be a Domestic Intelligence bot, Iron Bell decided he had better co-operate. "I'm...a syndicate bot , but the syndicate does it's...business... abroad." After telling them about how he got into Cybertron, he told them "The planet where I lived was once a sapient pony planet, and the ponies evolved over time into cyborgs and then made the jump to robotic life, keeping pony bodies and what they considered to be the best things of ponykind, like the herd mentality. Our ruler calls herself Celestia and has an "Alicorn-Class" body that only she can possess, and pony magic is common amongst us. Domestic raiding is banned on our planet, which is a royal dictatorship. but raiding and scamming of non-pony planets is winked at as long as it doesn't start a war . On our own planet and the ten or so planets that it controls, though. things are quite strict in some ways. Blasters are legal, but can only be used in self defense of oneself, someone else, property, or the world itself, otherwise you get hacked forcibly and enslaved. About a tenth of the bots are serving penal sentences and are used for mining and other such work. If you go against the "Pony Way" on said planet, you are in serious trouble."

"We recently conquered a human planet, seared partly-magic cutie marks into the human's thighs, put those who fought against us to hard labour, and made the rest worship our leader, and live according to herd mentality and the Pony Way. Most of them had been worshipping human gods and goddesses, but one country was worshipping a "Megatron." I was just a common soldier doing a conscription stint. We executed the Megatronist acolytes who cursed us fearlessly as they died, saying that someday they would be avenged, but at first the common Megatronists caused various troubles, until they were forcibly mind-chipped and forced to live according to the Pony Way. That was about five years ago. It is common knowledge that our leader Celestia dreams of one day slowly taking over the universe, one planet at a time, and forcing the Pony Way on all non-ponies. If you want, you can take me down to your...police station? If police is what you are. If I have to be mind read, I understand why, because I seem like a spy. Although would a spy really be stupid enough to show up with glowing blue eyes on a red eyed planet? Also, we are not droids, just like you, each of us has his own mind." He was worried, but he knew back on his home planet was a Save Disc in his Coder's panels, and the Boss of his syndicate had a Save Disc too.

The agents decided to send the information up to General Soundwave. Executing and maltreating Megatronists and forcing them to live according to a Pony Way was a possible cause for war in itself, and when fighting a robot race, it was better to do it sooner rather then later. If this bot was indeed part of a syndicate, he sounded like he had Decepticon sympathies and was unlikely to be executed, but the more they heard of this "Celestia" and her "Pony Way" the less they heard of it. It sounded very Autobot-like and if she was forcibly spreading it, it was a threat sooner or later to the spreading of the Decepticon Way.

Rather then just attacking there and then, spies led by RatBat would latter be sent to find out what this Ponybot planet was like. Was it seething with barely controlled dissention, or strongly united under a popular leader? How strong were it's armed forces? Just how unpleasent was this "Pony Way"? What should be done about the mind-chipped human Megatronists?

GameDeck's House

GameDeck was truly furious at being attacked like this in his own house by some brute, probably a domestic raider, when as far as he knew he had done and said nothing at all to deserve it. Realizing he might be punched until his boards broke, he activated his "God Mode" that he had brought from Ultimate Mods. With this he could throw off and despatch his hated foe.

*****
It was DeathStrike's turn to be angry when he woke up in a spare body. Buying a bomb from a nearby ICC shop, he circled about until he saw his body being carried by GameDeck, dived down and dropped the bomb, hoping to destroy GameDeck's second body even if it cost him his own. He was determined not to fail as a Problem Solver.

[Victorious Decepticons]

DreamWorld

At first, Loyal Star was not all that concerned about where he might go. After all, he had restored Leader Megatron to the realm of the living, and had remained loyal since! However, as he stared more closely, his eyes narrowed. He realized that instead of showing the Realm of Endless Energon as it should, the first screen was showing Heaven - the place of reward for the God of Christianity, who Megatron claimed to have conquered some time back! Loyal Star backed up a couple of steps, his tail flicking nervously as he tried to figure it out.

As he stared longer, he realized that its angels were busy toiling away, digging out ore. The screen panned back, and he saw several mean-looking cargo-bot-sized overseers watching the work. Perhaps this was another part of the Realm of Endless Energon after all...

"You don't need to worry about it." A voice said. Loyal Star looked to his right, and there was an Afterlife Administrator there who was painted with flames and glowing embers. "You lost to Optimus Prime. That is an Unforgivable Sin."

Loyal Star opened his mouth to argue, knowing full well that the claim was false. There was nothing in the Book of Megatron stating that it was "unforgivable" to lose to Prime, or, in fact, any foe that could put up a respectable fight. While losing was always bad and counted against someone, it was not categorically unforgivable like this bot was implying.

Alas, before he could utter a word, the floor opened up and he found himself plunging towards the Great Smelting Pit of the Afterlives - once known as the Lake of Fire - which had been forcibly seized when the Decepticons invaded and took over Hell. In an instant, he felt his hair ignite, and then his skin. The burning feeling soon consumed him, and it was all that he could perceive...

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

Loyal Star awoke to his engine-overheat alarm sending him jarring signals, and the first sound he perceived was his own backfire. Then, he realized that he was revving so hard that his engine was indeed overheating, which had caused the alarm to trigger. He forced it to run slower even as he sat bolt upright and looked around.

This time, he realized, he was truly awake. He ran through several reality checks, such as looking in the mirror, looking at his hands to make sure they weren't distorted, and reading things. All of them passed.

He also made sure he was in his proper Decepticon body, that its fuel level was as it was when he'd started defragging (minus a bit for the fact that even then, his engine was idling and then revving), and that he had the proper Seals in the proper color. Finally, he relaxed enough for his engine to come down to a fast idle, but he was still quite jarred from the very unnerving series of dream sequences.

Finally, he opened his front door, and was glad to see good old Cybertron all around him, complete with a broke-looking small-s scrounger going down the street looking all around for scrap. The smell of exhaust, which had been absent in his dream, was also present, as was the ubiquitous roar of jets, which he now heard with a new appreciation.

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

Cybertron

"We are Domestic Intelligence agents, and our mandate is to protect the Decepticon Way and our government from all threats that are on, or coming to, Planet Cybertron. There are no 'police' here as most think of them. However, since you are a potential threat that is on Cybertron, we do indeed want to question you further. And, you have even agreed to a code-read, so of course, we will take you up on that. Come with us to the local DomIntel outpost, please..."

It was the sort of "please" a police officer might indeed use - one with an unstated "or else" implied. As a group, they flew to the outpost, with the agents surrounding Iron Bell so he couldn't bolt off if he changed his mind.

Soon, they arrived at the outpost, which was a low building with "DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE" etched into a sign outside in plain block Binary. Inside, plain - but not cheap - rooms were ready for interrogations. Iron Bell was led to one with a code-reading machine already present, and was soon hooked up to it.

"We know that code-reading is intrusive," one of the agents said in an almost-kind way, "but there is really no better method of interrogation. With this method, we know that we will get what you believe to be the truth, with no glossing-over or spin attached. Any other method is subject to lies, misremembering, or the usual adjustments to responses that are made by people just because they want to be seen in a good light. As for a spy coming in with the wrong eye color, it's easy enough to do if you're from a place that doesn't know much about us - and you obviously don't, or else you wouldn't have made that error. But it doesn't mean that you aren't a spy! The code-read will tell us..."

Not long after, the agents had the name and location of Iron Bell's planet, the locations and names of all of the other planets in the empire he came from, and - most importantly to the agents - where these Megatronists were being held. However, to the agents' disappointment, Iron Bell didn't know much about the specifics of the chipping technology that had been used on them. Therefore, they didn't yet know if they could safely do something like EMP that area to free them, or if that would kill the slaves along with the chips. The Intelligence Division would make sure to embed an agent in a position to find out those details when they sent spies to the new empire.

They also got plenty of images and opinions of what day-to-day life was like on Iron Bell's planet. While the society seemed to work okay, the agents found the whole "herd mentality" thing horrific, and saw it as a waste of sapience. How could anyone willingly give up that much individuality? They were torn between wanting to invade and destroy the robo-ponies as abominations to sapience, invade and enslave them all since they just followed the group mindlessly anyway, and euthanizing them all as an actual act of mercy. As far as the Decepticons were concerned, these ponies were just one hair away from being members of the Borg itself.

Finally, they determined that Iron Bell was a syndicate scout looking to see if Cybertron would be a good place to set up operations that would be much like those a Decepticon syndicate would do. The difference was, Iron Bell was considering Cybertron as a potential target!

After the code-reading was complete, they - unusually for DomIntel - allowed him to properly come back online instead of melting down his boards and being done with him. They immediately let him know that any foreign syndicate would get its tailpipe blasted off, not only by Cybertron's many native syndicates, but by the government, as well. "We are the predators here, not prey," they said blatantly. "Attempts to switch that around will be met with lethal force."

Then, they went ahead and let him go - but with a fully-cloaked, tiny agent following not far behind. If Iron Bell pulled anything overly untoward, he would find agents coming to deactivate him in short order. They hoped, however, that the foreigner would go home, and in the process, lead that tiny spy right to the least-defended path. Most people, they knew, tried not to fly or otherwise go through huge groups of soldiers or cops, even if those forces were from their own nations. Instead, they'd take the path that would be the least likely to result in them getting hassled - the path with no soldiers expected, and preferably, no cops either. This was true for totally honest people as well as crooks.

Soon after, Ratbat and a crew of others made their way along the discovered flight path to the main planet, and began spying operations. Meanwhile, other spies - some in android forms - went to the other planets under the control of the newly-discovered empire. The second-most experienced crew, second only to Ratbat's group, went to the planet with the captured Megatronists, specifically to try to determine the best way to extricate them - and hopefully, get them into the superior positions that Megatronists were supposed to have (according to Megatron).

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

Megatron Mansion

Leader Megatron was pacing around, feeling a sense of anger for what seemed like no particular reason. A human in this state might say there was "something in the air." There was a nonspecific feeling of aggravation, and a bit of a sense that someone needed an ass-kicking. Megatron was just starting to get aggravated at the feeling itself when his communicator went off. He took a look at it, and almost smiled at the throbbing red light that was active. A red alert. The identifier screen said "Soundwave."

Something was indeed up.

Megatron answered, and within only a couple of minutes, he was fully briefed thanks to the wonderful communication speed made possible by Binary, combined with the fast bit-rate common to Cybertronian communication. Many things were great about being a robot, and being able to understand someone talking as fast as one could download a file was definitely one of them.

As soon as he disconnected from General Soundwave, he entered the number for the Main Base. While the specifics would have to wait until the Intelligence reports came in, one thing was already certain: There would be war.

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

Main Military Base

All of the High Generals, except for Soundwave, got messages from Megatron and met in the Strategy Room. For now, they didn't have enough details to even begin to make a coherent strategy, but they each agreed that they would begin to have their troops do drills for active warfare. These were a bit different from the usual drills, which just kept them in good general practice and kept them used to following orders.

One thing, however, had already been decided. Whoever supported enslaving the Megatronists would be put to death. If the robo-Celestia was secretly despised, that might not be too many. However, if she was hugely popular, it would be almost everyone on the main planet. Thanks to the fact that most ponies unquestioningly followed their leaders due to their herd mentality, it was to be assumed that almost everyone was on board with Celestia's plan.

Because of this, the Genocide Battalion was to be fully ready at "go" time, and was to drill extensively until then. In fact, the initial orders said, Carjack was to be ready to transfer another 10,000 soldiers from his regulars over to the Battalion - doubling its normal size - if the spies determined that there would be an especially large number of targets.

Soundwave's spy battalion would also get extra action during this war, if initial expectations held true. They would have to extricate Megatronists and other pro-Decepticon people from slave labor sites, and this would require keeping the desired people safe while strategically killing overseers, guards, and other such unwanteds. The Spy Battalion would be the best at this since they were trained to do "surgical strikes" as opposed to just blasting everything that got in the way.

[Vallermoore]

DreamWorld/Loyal Star's House

Instead of showing the Realm of Endless Energon, this screen was showing the Decepticon occupied Christian Heaven. Loyal Star flicked his tail, a little worried. "You don't need to worry about it." An Afterlife Administrator painted in flames and embers had appeared. "You lost to Optimus Prime. That is an Unforgivable Sin." Loyal Star was about to protest that in this tiny pony body, he had no chance against the Supreme Autobot, who even Divine Leader Megatron had a huge fight against to dispatch, when the floor opened up and he hurtled down into the Lake of Fire that was below him. As he ignited...

*****
...he woke for real, his engine overheating and backfiring loudly. He turned on Bravery up to 95%, the equivalent of a human taking a valium, and checked out his own body, which was as Decepticon as ever. His Seals, his metal, his Priestly Paint, was all as it should. He looked quickly through his Book of Megatron, and no dream-heresies had crept into it's pages. A scan for intelligent biological life in his house showed none, be it pony or otherwise. Finally he looked outside, and all was as it should be. Jet noise filled the skies, and a lowly scrounger with a small "s" was gathering rubbish to turn it into enough Energon to live on for another day. Loyal Star went back inside with a deep sigh of relief and turned his Bravery Up to it's normal 50%.

*****
Iron Bell put up no resistance, which was unusual, as a lot of the time bots arrested by Domestic Intelligence fought back or tried to flee. It turned out that it was true that he had no idea what an Autobot even was, so could not be pretending to be one. Those blue eyes were just the default setting for a Ponybot. Not only that, but if he had been built on Cybertron he would have fit right in as a syndicate bot. He was loyal to his ruler, but only in the way the average Decepticon was loyal to Megatron-and Celestia was a dictator. Some things, like the chips that controlled human slaves in the small Ponybot empire, he knew nothing about. When the army was summoned, Iron Bell just served as a common soldier within it. They also found out a bit about general life from the average Ponybot's eye view.

At the bottom, the lowest of the low, were the Megatronists. Chipped after their takeover for holding secret Megatronist services, they mined, worked in factories and on farms, and most of their overseers were biological sapient ponies, with a few bots just in case the chips broke. They were whipped often, even though their chips made them work hard, and when they got a little time off, had to live according to the pony herd way of life.

One step up were non Megatronist humans and other aliens, whose status varied from non-chipped slaves, to free people of the lower and lower-middle class. Most had no love for their rulers, and disliked having to live according to the Pony Way.

Then there were the sapient ponies, sleek and fat and only one level below the Ponybots themselves, who had all the good jobs that biologicals were allowed to hold, and were the great majority of the overseers, seen by the Ponybots as the Best Race of the Biologicals, just as the Ponybots saw themselves as the best Machine Life.

Then there were the Ponybots themselves, and at the very top, Celestia, who wore white armour-plating, a long horn, and could fly when not in plane mode with in effect, a second pair of wings. All Ponybots had a Pony Seal, and strangely, a cutie mark as well. Whilst domestic raiding was banned, it was allowed abroad if ponies were not the victims. Once a year, a few very lucky sapient ponies would be allowed after a mind read the Ultimate Upgrade if they had done well enough as ponies of flesh blood and bone. To find out more, spies would be needed.

Unusually, they decided to let Iron Bell go. He was Decepticon in mindset, had only used his blasters in self defense, like any Decepticon would be expected to, and had no idea how dangerous Cybertron really was. They did warn him that Decepticons were predators, not prey. After a quick look in the Museum of Great Connivers, Iron Bell flew home...and they followed. As a syndicate bot, he knew ways to avoid border guards.

*****
Megatron Mansion/Main Military Base

Leader Megatron was angry about something, but he couldn't put his metal finger down on it. No-one had said or done anything to annoy him, and all was stable on Cybertron. Then he got a call from High General Soundwave, and soon he knew what had been bugging him. A rival Way was out there, and it not only maltreated his loyalists, but wanted to take over the universe and so was a direct threat. And when he heard what it was, he took an instant dislike to it. War was certain.

The High Generals gathered at the Main Military Base and soon their soldiers would be put to drilling, depending on what information Forintel brought back. One unit was set to drilling at once-the Genocide Battalion. Those who supported enslaving Megatronists, and even more so the overseers, would be put to death on the spot. Megatron valued even biological loyalists deeply. It was loyalty that had brought Him back from the afterlife after all.

*****
Phanos

The fifth planet from a Sun-like star, twice Earth's size with two moons, was the leading planet of the small Ponybot Empire, and it was checked out first. Ratbat himself decided to check out Celestia. It turned out she lived in a castle modeled on Canterlot Castle but made out of metal and with SAM batteries defending it. For miles around, the area had planatary panels that felt good and solid to the touch, but the rest of the planet was made of earth and sea and rock. Celestia herself looked like an alicorn, one Decepticon sized and made of metal, painted white, with a sun on one flank, and her actual cutie mark, a crown, on the other. The only free biologicals on Phanos were a relatively few plump pony overseers, often with cutie marks that indicated cruelty, whose job it was to oversee large numbers of mostly mostly Megatronist slaves, who either toiled in work gangs, or were personal slaves.

They checked out the other moons and planets in the system, and the next two systems, that made up the entire Empire. The pattern was clear-ponies were treated well, like favoured pets, but all non pony biologicals were treated as inferiors or worse, and the Megatronists were at the very bottom, often whipped and taunted about how their God didn't care about them just to make them suffer more. They shoplifted some unactivated mind boards from a shop, that they thought would have the Pony Way programmed in it . The Way's weaknesses (as well as any strengths) could then be found out about. As it turned out, it wasen't but they also shoplifted the Ponybot version of the SEDP, and that did have the Pony Way in it.

They found military bases, slave camps, and various other areas of interest to an invader such as military factories. By chance, they saw a young bot gain a cutie mark, and these marks, whilst not as important as under the False Alicorn, played an important role in Ponybot society. They noted that certain Ponybots were serving hacked penal time, although they didn't know what for. From what they found out, the Ponybot army was large, but at most it would take a few days if that to destroy it if they used most of Cybertron's population. They saw a few drills, that were mainly for the phalanx-good against weak opposition, but not against the free flowing Decepticon Military and Decepticon Raider Front.

*****
Pesticide was playing Conquer the Universe in the Genocide Battalion barracks when an alarm rudely jerked him out of it. He fell in quickly with the others and soon enough High General Carjack showed up, looking angry, but not as angry as he was when woken up, and began to speak to them.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

GameDeck was walking along with what he thought was his latest prize, when he heard a recognizable whistle come from the air. He knew immediately that a bomb had been dropped, and his first instinct was to make a jet-assisted forward leap to get out of the way. However, the deactivated body he was carrying disrupted his balance, making him fall over after only moving a couple of feet. It wasn't far enough, and not long after, DeathStrike's bomb landed and went off. Both his body and the already-deactivated one were blown into large chunks, turning them both into definite junk and sending GameDeck's mind to yet another spare.

DeathStrike soon landed, and collected the most important parts of the body that had been his. He made sure to take the engine and transmission, which were the heaviest and would fetch the most Cubes from a foundry. He also grabbed the parts of the wings with the seals on them so that no one would be able to uncover the still-hidden Problem Solver insignias, though at this point, any uncovering would have only been by accident. Then, cursing that he didn't have a cart to take all of the other metal too, he stomped off toward a facility that would pay for the scrap.

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

GameDeck reactivated in the last body he had at home, both cursing the tenacity of his foe and wondering what the problem really was. He knew by now that this wasn't some robber. A robber would have gone back to his home once he was out of it, hoping to raid it to the bare walls. This attacker was definitely after him personally, and seemed to have no interest in mere stealing.

The game maker was naturally a bit stingy, so it took him a while to think of it. However, he finally decided that it might be a good idea to see if he could entice DomIntel to unravel the mystery. That, it would turn out, might not be as easy as it seemed. To do that, he would have to get to the local DomIntel office, and he knew that he might come under attack the moment he went into the open.

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

Meanwhile, DeathStrike had cashed in the little bit of scrap he had managed to get, pocketing about 500 Cubes in the process. His first thought was to go get GameDeck's last good in-house spare, but he also realized that he didn't have any more spares of his own. Considering the fact that GameDeck had managed to deactivate one of his bodies already, he realized that it'd be extra-risky if he barged back over in his final running instance. He decided to stop at the ICC warehouse and pick up another spare first, even though it would be a large investment. After all, he'd never get to be the best Problem Solver on Cybertron, or get his tail, if he ended up permanently dead. As a bonus for taking this precaution, he could also choose a paint job that GameDeck wouldn't instantly recognize, and perhaps, be able to take him by surprise for at least one battle.

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

Main Military Base

By now, ForIntel had sent back enough reports to get a pretty good picture of the ponybot empire. As Megatron and the High Generals read these reports, they all got more and more furious. Megatronists, it appeared, were being kept as the least of the society's members, when they really should have been ruling the planet! However, it wouldn't be possible to just go there in great numbers and slaughter everyone to free them, because the slaves of the Decepticons, they weren't all conveniently confined to work sites. While some did mining and other such labor, many others were held as household slaves, company janitors, and in other such positions. This meant that the Decepticons would have to find a way to ONLY hit the non-Megatronists - which would be hard when Megatronists might be just a few feet away from these targets.

"We have to find a way to get the Megatronists and non-Megatronists apart from each other," Megatron said. He and the High Generals all thought that this sucked, but it was a necessary course of action. Without it, they would end up wiping out their own loyalists - a move that certainly wouldn't help make anyone else want to be a Megatronist.

It would likely be up to General Soundwave or Megatron to come up with some kind of plot to get the ponybots and bio-ponies to separate out the slaves themselves. Perhaps, Soundwave suggested, they could put out a fake directive claiming that the enslavement chips had to be upgraded, or that all of the slaves had to be tested for some sort of disease or genetic condition.

Megatron, on the other hand, wondered if they could connive the ponybot government into handing the Megatronists over. They could, he said, pretend to be from some other empire and offer to buy them all. If the ponybots fell for it, they would get all of the slaves into a huge group for transport out of the ponybot empire - only to have the Decepticons then show up in their numbers and blast the hell out of everyone who was left!

As would be expected of a hierarchical military structure, it was decided to try Megatron's idea first. They would pretend to be something other than the Decepticons, and try to con the ponies into selling them ALL of the Megatronist slaves. Megatron figured that it'd be best to pretend to be some distant, small, pony empire since it was clear that the ponybots were still friendly with their biological equivalents. ForIntel agents could easily pretend to be ponies, who would "pilot" the cargo-bots to pick up the slaves.

Of course, if the ponybots agreed to this, they wouldn't actually get anything in return. The Decepticon Interplanetary Bank would be tasked with creating a completely worthless version of whatever payment was required. This would ensure that the enemy's economy was not helped in any way by the deal.

Megatron and the High Generals also thought up a few backup plans just in case this ploy didn't work. After all, the ponybots might think that the slaves were essential to their economy, or have some other reason for refusing to sell them off. If that happened, the Decepticons wouldn't be stymied for long - they would just move on to another plan for getting the desirables (the Megatronists) separated from the rest of the population.

General Carjack was itching to go to this empire and start the slaughter, but it wasn't time yet. He and his Battalion (and all of the other Decepticon soldiers, for that matter) would have to wait until the successful separation of the targets from the non-targets.

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

The other thing they needed to do was examine this Pony Way. It likely had some differences from the usual versions, since they had already gone ahead and decided to follow a False Alicorn who was likely known to be a false one. They had also made slavery a big part of their society, which was not something they'd seen in ponies who followed the real Alicorns. What else had changed? They began to read through the Citizenship class books the spies had picked up, as well as an SEDP-like chip one of the spies had managed to pilfer off of a delivery guy who was servicing one of the stores.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

DeathStrike was pleasantly satisfied to see GameDeck smashed into small pieces of steel shrapnel, but he needed a new body before he fought him again, or it might be GameDeck who solved the problem at his expense. If he got killed, he would never be able to buy a new tail from Ultimate Mods or become one of the best Problem Solvers ever. Luckily he had enough Energon to buy a new body at an IOPC shop and decided to have it painted in green and black so he a chance of sneaking up on GameDeck. He also brought two more bombs and started flying around looking for GameDeck, waiting for him to come into the open. He had destroyed most if not all of GameDeck's Save Discs already, but it was likely that one or two of them still existed. As an ICC member, he had permission to leave his old body at the shop for a few hours.

*****
Main Military Base

There were two main reason why the Ponybot Empire would soon be no more-the horrible way they treated Megatronists, and the fact that they too hoped one day to conquer the universe. The sooner they were reduced to molten metal that could be made into proper Decepticons the better. It was decided to send experienced Forintel agents who were used to passing as ponies to see if they could buy as many of the Megatronists as possible. As they studied the Pony Way, they had to admit to themselves that it was not quite all junk. Loyalty for example, was in fact a virtue to Decepticons as well, and Decepticons without loyalty to Megatron had a short and a very painful future if Domintel found out about them. But the very idea of living in a herd society disgusted them and made them wonder how much true sapience the average pony-bot enjoyed. A ponybot without friends for too long might even get visited by the Queen's Guards as a possible dissident and dragged into their equivalent of Debugging.

There were three classes of Ponybots. Earth bots were overseers, business-bots , builders and the like, and also did all the unpleasant jobs that were not done by slaves. Pegasus bots were in effect the Military/Police bots and had the best armour and weapons, and better mind boards then Earth bots. Unicorn bots knew Pony Magic including teleporting, telekinesis and lightning and had better mind boards then the other two classes. Clearly this society was very class ridden, and cutie marks had a role in it too. Whilst the Decepticons had their classes too, they were flexible except for the richest of the 1% at the top and those bots at the very bottom. But for an Earth bot or a Pegasus bot to rise in class they needed both enough Energon, and the OK of their Alicorn-Class ruler, Celestia, who was portrayed as the Supreme Ponybot in much the same way as Leader Megatron was portrayed as the Supreme Decepticon. Like Leader Megatron, she was worshipped, but she was no more a Goddess then Megatron before he gained divinity had been a God.

In the distant past, as ponies, they had been oppressed and enslaved by humans before breaking free, and that was why they had enslaved non pony biologicals when they became robots. They never forgot their pony origins though, which was why they were so nice to ponies and gave those they thought to be the best the chance of the Ultimate Upgrade.

The Ponybot equivalent of being melted down was to have their mind boards forcibly reverted to foalhood, in effect killing the affected bot as all their memories would be destroyed, causing true death including de facto soul reincarnation. This was the penalty for disloyalty to Celestia and the Pony Way, hacking, raiding a pony-controlled planet, and being caught as a domestic raider when it was the third offence.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

GameDeck stayed in his house for a long time, hoping that his foe would be foolish enough to attack there again. It was now clear that his enemy didn't just want to rob him, so he knew there would be another attack at some point. However, days went by, and nothing happened. By now, he had to get back to his factory to make sure everything was running properly and according to schedule.

For a moment, he hoped that his foe wouldn't recognize the spare he was using. However, he realized almost instantly that this body was just as obvious as his other ones. It was painted in space-black, but had several tiny spiral galaxies dotted all over it, and along the top of his wingspan, which was fairly straight across in robot mode, there was the tip of a game-style attack ship with its blasters showing. Even his transformation sound was unique - it made a pew-pew noise instead of the usual bzzt-bzzt-bzzt.

Still, he wasn't too bothered. While this body didn't have the God Mode that the last one did, it had a wonderful 360-degree vision add-on as well as the ability to fire shells that would release small EMP blasts after they had penetrated armor. Plus, it had a good cloaking suite, which he activated just before he opened his front door to go out.

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

Main Military Base
Strategy Room

As more data came in, the Intelligence Division (including MilIntel) eagerly pushed a plan to infiltrate the society and corrode it from the inside out. Megatron, however, was in no mood for such a bloodless method of takeover.

"These abominations do not use whatever sapience they might have," Megatron said with disgust. "Not only do they mindlessly follow their silly 'marks,' they abdicate even more thinking by allowing themselves to be slotted into classes! On top of that, they worship a thing that isn't even a god, and who might not even claim to be one! They must have some reason for going along with her LARP, but going along with it requires ignoring what they surely know - that she is just a regular person who built a body that looks like an Alicorn but can't deliver any of the power of one."

Megatron now turned to Carjack. "Ready your Battalion. You and your Genociders will be in the first wave, with your death-hungry regulars right behind. When I give the signal, you'll go in and delete as many of these things as you can. Wipe out both the robots and the biological ponies. Those bots are surely just junk in comparison to us, and the only place for them is the foundries that we'll set up on Phanos. Once we gain control, we'll have the Megatronists do one last bit of labor - throw all of the scrap pony metal into the smelting pits, and the biological carcasses into the rendering grinders! I'm sure they'll love being able to melt down and grind up all that remains of their former owners."

"For now, though, we need to take more steps to get those slaves out of the way. Our agents were able to buy some, but plenty of 'people' wouldn't sell, and a lot of companies refused, too. I need to convince this 'Celestia' to use her dictatorial powers to order EVERYONE to hand over their slaves for a mass pick-up. Then, as soon as the slave-filled cargo-bots are behind our lines, we'll attack."

"I will radio her now, using a different voice chip so she doesn't recognize that it's me. Then, I'll see what kind of bribe it'll take to get her to issue the sell order to her entire empire..."

[Vallermoore]

Main Military Base
Strategy Room

High General Soundwave and many members of Forintel and Milintel wanted to infiltrate the place and corrode it from the inside out, but Megatron was not having that. The more infomation he was fed about Ponybot society, the more he hated it. "These abominations do not use whatever sapience they might have. Not only do they mindlessly follow their silly 'marks,' they abdicate even more thinking by allowing themselves to be slotted into classes! On top of that, they worship a thing that isn't even a god, and who might not even claim to be one! They must have some reason for going along with her LARP, but going along with it requires ignoring what they surely know - that she is just a regular person who built a body that looks like an Alicorn but can't deliver any of the power of one." He had some sort of grudging respect for a true Alicorn, who as a Divine being could harm even His body in combat, but nothing for a LARPING fake who pretended to be one without the powers of one. He despised the Ponybots for willingly accepting a pretty solidly fixed class system instead of the pretty fluid for the most part system that the Decepticons had, where only the very top and very bottom classes were de facto fixed, and for having bodies that reminded them of when they had once been mere biologicals long ago. It was decided that as soon as the Megatronists were safe, the Genocide Battalion would fly in the very front rank, a symbol of great Decepticon displeasure. The deactivated Ponybot bodies would make, once melted down, sheets of Decepticon Steel to be made into proper Decepticon bodies.

Buying the slaves had been a bit of a problem because the Ponybots mainly wanted Energon, along with some appleas and other fruits, both of which were hard if not impossible to forge. The cost however would soon be taken out of their metal hides. About 40% of the Megatronists were now out of danger, but many companies and other agents didn't want to sell them, as they neither wanted to do the work themselves or put their pampered pony overseers to work either. Megatron, not too proud to use the con part of being a Decepticon despite His Divine nature and great power, that he would still have even if he had never become Divine in the first place, called Celestia, using Equish rather then his normal Cybertronian Binary. The price asked in exchange for every slave they wanted in the Empire, turned out to be a craft the size of the Orion filled with Energon Supreme, a small part which would be test burned by a high ranking Ponybot first. As it turned out, once this was sorted out (by bots in bodies that looked like ponies) all was ready to make an end of this so-called Empire and utterly destroy all sapient biological and robotic life on Phanos. An hour before the Decepticon attack would begin, all Forintel spies were to get out so they didn't risk getting their expensive bodies blown up by mistake.

When Carjack gave a short speech just before they took off, Pesticide felt a thrill of excitement. Unlike DeathStrike, he was very glad at that moment that he was tailless, or his tail would be flicking and wagging all over the place which would give him away as a former biological. There were in fact a few biologicals in the Genocide Battalion, but it had a very strict "Don't Ask Don't Tell" posistion on the issue, with one exception. They all knew their commander was a former biological, but none would dare challenge him on the issue as it would be suicidal. Despite his strictness, Carjack was a popular commander as he shared danger, when it existed, with his fellow bots. High Generals were expected to lead from the front, even if it ended up costing them a body or two. A High General who wanted to stay at the back in a battle would most likely be ordered straight to Debugging to find out what had gone wrong with their expensive mind boards. This was what he had gone through to become a Decepticon and then all his training for.

On Phanos, everything was normal until a few rather bored Ponybot border guards saw the Genocide Battalion and radioed them asking why they were here and in such numbers. In her castle-palace, Celestia sprawled upon her throne, munching on biological apples as she liked the taste of them and making plans to raid human planets for more slaves and take one planet over, plans that unknown to her had no chance of success.

*****
After a long time of watching DeathStrike saw the door open and shut. Turning on infa-red and various pinging tools, he flew down towards his foe, who this time was not taken by surprise and felt his anger rise immensely, his camouflaged eyes darkening to a deep dark red that was nearly black at being targeted like this when he didn't provoke the trouble.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Phanos

Faux-Celestia was very pleased with her giant haul of Energon Supreme, and quickly flew to the vessel to have a drink and celebrate her success at negotiating such a fine deal. To her, the slaves weren't actually worth even 1/10 of the value of all of that fuel, but the mysterious person on the other end of the radio had seemed desperate to get them. She smirked as she poured herself a large glass' worth from the tap on the side of the tank part of the spacecraft, and took a sniff before she put it to her silicone lips.

She paused for a moment when she smelled the Energon. It didn't have the usual scent of the fuel made on organic worlds, but instead, seemed to have a very slightly metallic undertone. However, she didn't have long to think about it...

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

Leader Megatron, flying at the front of the massive invasion force, used his telescope vision setting to examine the target planet - and easily saw when the False Alicorn approached the ship of Energon. He watched as she smirkily poured herself a glass, and as she raised that glass to her snout, Megatron readied a secret command.

You will never taste even one drop of my Energon, Megatron thought silently, and radioed his command to the ship using a secret frequency. This command was also encrypted.

As soon as the command reached the Energon vessel, it exploded with the force of a large bomb, easily taking out not only all of the nearby ponies - including this instance of "Celestia" - but also everything else within a radius of about 5 miles. Not only did this cause plenty of death and destruction, it obliterated one of Phanos' largest space ports. That would put a serious dent in the planet's ability to get resupplied or receive backup troops from the other worlds in its empire.

Even before the fireball had a chance to completely dissipate, Megatron gave another command. This time, it was sent over the standard Decepticon Military frequency, and there was no encryption.

"DECEPTICONS, ATTACK!"

Immediately, the entire huge formation descended, using their jets to speed up their time of arrival. Megatron's division went forward towards the military bases Soundwave had pinpointed, while Carjack and the Genociders headed toward the biggest city with the rest of his division as backup. Soundwave and his division headed for the Phanos military command center, with the intention of destroying or blocking its communications and exterminating any high-ranking officers it came across. Meanwhile, Skywarp and Thundercracker and their divisions split into smaller groups and headed out to the smaller towns and cities on Phanos. General Shockwave and his division remained in space to interfere with, and hopefully destroy, any military craft that tried to get in from other Phanos-empire planets.

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

GameDeck's House

GameDeck was furious that this implacable enemy was back again, especially since he couldn't think of anything he might have done to anger the bot. Now, however, was not the time for wondering why - DeathStrike was bearing down on him at high speed while fine-tuning his blaster aim! GameDeck raised his own blasters and let fly with focused energy, while simultaneously shooting off two salvos of ballistic EMP shells. He intended to blast this enemy into shrapnel one way or the other, and be done with it. He knew that if he got an EMP shell to penetrate his foe's armor in the right place, it would not only wipe out the electronics behind it, but jam his foe's mind-transfer effort.

At the same time, DeathStrike began to fire. Those in the immediate area stopped what they were doing and turned to watch the battle.

[Vallermoore]

Phanos

Although Faux-Celestia was extremely pleased with her huge haul of Energon Supreme, unknown to her Megatron had decided that there was no way any of His Energon would find it's way down her throat. It wasn't her having slaves that annoyed him, but the fact that first she had enslaved and body chipped His loyal worshippers, and second, that her spreading of the Pony Way made it a competing ideology to the Decepticon Way and a threat. On top of that, he and all right-minded Decepticons hated the Pony Way in principle and thought her subjects were glitched for letting her rule them. As she was about to drink a glass of Energon, (which was genuine as it couldn't be faked without failing the burn test) Megatron sent a coded symbol to a bomb within the starship, and a second later, it exploded, destroying everything within five miles. Even Faux-Celestia's body, the strongest and best body that this world could produce, was utterly destroyed, although she transferred to a spare in her metal castle. Megatron would get the exploded Energon back through destroying the Ponybot Empire and all who lived in it.

The up until now bored border guards were about to get a very nasty shock. "DECEPTICONS, ATTACK!" There were too few border guards to fight for more then thirty seconds. Even as Faux-Celestia went on her holovision and ordered her soldiers into action, Phanos was already being swarmed by the Decepticon Military. They got off a couple of SAM salvos, and took out some bots, before the missile launchers were blasted into bits. Yee-hawing and cheering, the Genocide Battalion, Pesticide amongst them, blasted any bot not showing the Decepticon Seal, any pony, and indeed any biological life big enough to notice. Of course, the Ponybots fought back. Earth Ponybot blasters were relatively weak, Pegasus Ponybots were equal in strength to the average Decepticon but vastly outnumbered, and the also outnumbered Unicorn Ponybots had pony magic as well as their blasters. Against an intact metal skin and Faraday Cage, pony lightning and telekinesis was useless, but against a wounded bot with a damaged cage, lightning could sear wires and telekinesis could snap them or even crush fuel pumps. The Genocide Battalion was not about to break and flee because a few members ended up in the Main Save Vault, however.

Ponybot Military bots forming up into phalanxes soon realized that it made them into massive targets for their Decepticon foes, and they lost half their total strength within an hour, before fighting in small groups. Skywarp got a nasty scratch on his armor like it had been keyed, and ThunderCracker lost a couple of rear facing cameras to a telekinesis attack that pulled them from his body, but all in all, there was nothing much the average Ponybot could do against a Decepticon High General. The Ponybot Marshal, who went by the name of Shining Armour, teleported close to General Soundwave and let off a close range blast aiming for the spymaster's head.

Of course, radio calls got out to the other planets and their regiments got involved, only to run into General Shockwave's division, that was larger then all of theirs put together, and had ways of finding cloaked bots trying to slip by them.

With Phanos near to falling to the Decepticons, the Faux Celestia came out to fight, and attempted to fry High General Carjack with pony lightning and crush his insides with telekinesis. As Carjack's armour was undamaged, all she managed to do was damage his coats of wax and a bit of his paint, not even able to dent his Decepticon Steel body. It was Carjack's turn to reply with his blasters.

*****
GameDeck's House

Both bots took damage, DeathStrike losing the use of a lower leg from an EMP shell, and GameDeck taking severe damage to one arm from a blast in the right place, but both were more then capable of fighting on. The nearby bots watched the battle with interest, staying well clear of the blasts from both sides. Such fights were a source of great free entertainment on Cybertron.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Phanos

General Carjack was surprised when the enemy leader flew up as he was strafing the biggest city. Once she attacked, he became irked instead. He was enjoying wiping out thousands of puny peasants below as his Battalion took care of the robotic opposition, but somehow, this big enemy had made it through.

Soon, he detected an attempt to put a crushing force on his fuel pump, but he simply increased his own psychic shielding and laughed as he canceled it out with no problem. His military training caused him to ready his blasters, but he overrode that. This one wanted to engage in magical warfare? Then he would show her how that was supposed to be done! It would just be too bad for her that Carjack would show her by using her as the target...

"So you want to PLAY!" Carjack taunted over the radio as he quickly moved into a direct line across from Faux-Celestia. "Well then, let's PLAY..." His voice sounded quite sadistic, and even though he spoke fairly slowly to her, his eagerness to do damage was evident.

"Your puny lightning attacks are nothing." Carjack boasted. "I don't have to use my energy like that to create electrical devastation. Here...this is how it's done."

In an instant, Faux-Celestia felt the presence of foreign energy across her internal Faraday cage. Then, to her horror, she felt it enter in between one of the tiny gaps that made it a "cage" instead of a "wall." This foreign sensation crawled up around her wiring, reaching for the main connector between her boards and the rest of her electrical system. She tried to put up a psychic jamming shield, but to her horror, the probing energy seemed to have a shield of its own that protected it from this interference.

Next, she sensed the energy reaching down between the tiny gap between each part of her electrical harness until it reached a critical area. There was a pause, and then, a blast of power was forced into the key point. In another instant, her boards were overloaded. She felt her resistors pop one after another, and then her mind was filled with gibberish as her chips began to smoke. One instant after that, she felt nothing at all.

After this, smoke emanated from her head and motion boards, and her body began to glide to the ground with all of its systems offline. Carjack gave it just a slight blast with his regular weaponry - enough to knock it into a position aiming more sharply toward the ground - and it didn't take long for it to fall into a tailspin. The smoking, deactivated hunk of pony-shaped steel plunged into the planet's surface and exploded with a bang.

"n00b." Carjack's voice came over the radio after he observed the crash. Faux-Celestia was in no condition to hear it, but everyone in his division knew that someone had just been given a lesson in how to really do magical attacks. A few had even been close enough to see the battle and knew full well that he had defeated whatever excuse for defenses this false Alicorn had set up.

The term for Carjack's method varied depending on the era and the planet trying to describe it. On some worlds, it would be called "energy bending." Carjack, however, preferred an older type of terminology: Electromancy.

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

It didn't take long for the Decepticon Military to wipe out all organized defense on Phanos, and the Genocide Battalion went about the work of bringing the population down to manageable numbers with bloodthirsty glee. They especially enjoyed wiping out the pony-bots, using their blasters to make their targets erupt in showers of sparks and balls of flame, depending on which parts they aimed at. Some of them landed in the big cities after the robots were out of the way, and then captured the biological ponies.

Rather than keep them in cages, the Genociders slaughtered them as humans would do to cattle, and offered the meat to the ponies' former non-Megatronist slaves (which were not included in the big purchase due to their lack of Megatronism). To the surprised delight of the murderous Battalion, many of these non-pony slaves eagerly grabbed chunks of the meat and cooked them up. Apparently, some biological species had no qualms about eating other sapients as long as they weren't their own species!

Elsewhere, the Decepticons began to land and corral any survivors of the military onslaught. This wasn't very hard because they started with the small towns. The cities, they figured, would be devoid of any opposing sapient life before long. After all, the Genociders were going from one to the other, and Carjack's regulars were ordered to assist. Once they were done, the other soldiers would come through and collect any non-opposing - but still biological - life left in those cities.

Once the remnants of the original Phanos population were all collected into groups, Leader Megatron would be able to address them all via radio or holovision and tell them how things would work from now on. There was a good chance that all of them, perhaps excepting some that had welcomed the Decepticons' arrival, would end up as slaves. One thing was for sure, and that's that it would be a death penalty offense to speak against Megatron or Megatronism, or to even imply that a Megatronist was anything but their superior. From now on, even the most wretched Megatronist was to be treated like a king by all members of the conquered population.

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

In a safe location on a nearby planet, the purchased Megatronists cheered as giant holovisions showed the conquest of Phanos and the extermination of the infernal ponies that had made their lives hell. Frequently, shouts of "do you wonder where our god is NOW!?" rang out, answering the ponies' prior taunts asking them where Megatron was. "GUESS HE CARES A LOT!" was another comment that was constantly heard. This was a retort for all of the times the ponies had said that Megatron didn't care about them.

Of course, the ponies didn't hear any of this. It was all yelled at the big holovisions. Still, the Megatronists felt great to finally be able to say it as Leader Megatron's army brought the former "masters" of Phanos down.

The Megatronists, however, would not be able to hear a speech from Megatron yet, or leave their big holding area. This was because there were 10 planets in the Phanos Empire, and there were still 9 of them left to take over. Megatron and most of the Decepticon Military, minus the soldiers needed to keep Phanos' remaining population under control, would move onto the next one now. They would repeat this over and over, until the entire Phanos Empire was annexed into the Decepticon Empire.

As the Military moved onto its next target en masse - rather than splitting up to attack all of the other planets at the same time - Megatron decided that those other planets should still come under attack sooner than the Military could get to them. He put out a radio message on Cybertron, and gave the location of those planets.

Soon, the eight planets not yet encountering the Decepticon Military would be visited by something almost as scary: the Raider Front. With an "including population" addendum added to the loot sheet, no one there was safe. Unless they had excellent defenses, it was possible that there'd be little left on the surface of some of those planets by the time the Decepticon Military arrived.

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

Cybertron

DeathStrike and GameDeck continued to blast at each other, and for a while, it seemed as if they might even deactivate each other. However, DeathStrike had the advantage of the air, and eventually, he was able to strafe GameDeck enough to completely disable his body. Then, he finally landed - making sure to put his weight on his still-working leg - and with a precise double-blaster shot, deactivated his foe once more.

GameDeck reactivated back in his factory, where he had originally left a body after his house alarm had gone off. He was angry and confused, but now, he was also a bit afraid. This enemy was relentless, and he was a great fighter as well. He thought hard about what to do, and came to a decision.

He came out of his vault, and had everyone stop working. He then informed them of what was going on, and offered them 100,000 Cubes if they could deactivate this implacable foe. GameDeck also radioed a security company, the one who usually provided his Market Share Protection services, and had them send over four bodyguards. If DeathStrike tried to make a frontal attack here, he would now be in for a lot more than he bargained for.

Meanwhile, DeathStrike went to the ICC repair facility and had them get his body working ASAP. He knew that GameDeck would now be working frantically to beef up his security, and he wanted to get fixed and back in action before his foe could get completely ready. He, too, was thinking hard about what to do next.

[Vallermoore]

Phanos

Fortunately for Faux-Celestia, she didn't spend very long in the Realm of Punishment before her Empire's equivalent of Loyal Star brought her back from a Save Disc, and quickly explained to her what was happening to her Empire. She gave him a deep bow of gratitude. "We can't stay here and fight it out. If we stay here we'll all end up as foundry food," he explained to her. "We have to flee so that the Ponybot race will survive. All we can do is get the armed forces to fight long enough to get some of us out of here." Within a couple of hours, the last Phanos defenders had been blasted or fled, or in a handful of cases surrendered without being killed on the spot. The unfortunate biological ponies ended up being killed and made into horsemeat. Non Megatronist human slaves were taken over by the Decepticons and a single Megatronist Priest went to see if there were any genuine Megatronists that had been overlooked earlier, after which they would go to the Decepticon mines.

As for the Megatronists who had been brought earlier, Megatron had used his divine power to stop their chips working, and they were watching the defeat and slaughter of their pony and Ponybot tormenters. "Do you wonder where our god is NOW!?" "GUESS HE CARES A LOT!" There was a lot of happy cheering at the defeat of their foes.

Faux Celestia and the last of her Royal Guards made it to the next planet and she reached an undamaged holovision station. "My Ponies and my little ponies, Phanos has fallen to another robotic race who are far fiercer then we ever were. Every bot should make a Save Disc and we will put them on one of our starships so if you don't make it out, you can be put into a new body one day. The military needs to hold the line on each planet for two to three hours to give us any of us a chance to get out. If enough of us survive to take over one planet, we can remake our race. To my little ponies, we will get as many of you out in starships as we can." Of course, the Decepticons now knew her plans as well, and they didn't want to have to fight another war with the Ponybots later on. The Raider Front turned up very soon afterwards even as the starships were being filled. A few Ponybots tried hiding in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant.

******
Cybertron

To his relief, DeathStrike sent GameDeck to his last spare body that he had at the moment and quickly had an ICC mechanic fix and repaint his body. In effect, the ICC had a health plan for it's members. He then accessed the file in his body that said exactly how many Energon Cubes he had left and considered his options. Giving up was unthinkable. The only thing that would make him do that was a direct order from Megatron or a High General. Barging in by himself would get him killed and he had only one spare body. Either he would have to hire others, perhaps other ICC members or Scroungers or a Raid Gang, or he would have to get some really huge bomb, or he would need to use trickery of some kind, and he ran his fans whilst thinking of what to do next. He also raidioed Violence and offered him some Energon if he could help him defeat his foe. He was determined to defeat GameDeck-or die trying. It was all about his reputation as a successful Problem Solver, which was more important to DeathStrike even then his life.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Phanos Empire, Second Planet

Less than one second after Faux-Celestia began speaking over the holovision, General Soundwave had triangulated the source of the transmission and had 10,000 soldiers on the way. Another 5,000 from General Shockwave's division joined in, racing to blast the foe before she could get away. Since Shockwave and his division were already in space, they had quite a head start and were sure to arrive first. Leader Megatron decided to help their travel, and blessed them with a 50% speed increase - as well as improved flying skills so they wouldn't bash into anything.

Meanwhile, others from Soundwave's division used advanced optics to spot the ponybots who had fled to a gas giant. Once the ponybots were beneath the cloud layer, they couldn't be seen, but at least the Decepticons knew which planet to search. Soundwave decided to go ahead and go there himself, along with his specialized MilIntel Foreign Infiltration Battalion. There, they would use anti-cloaking technology that was not yet available to most Decepticons to uncover the hiding ponybots. Blasting would then commence.

As this was happening, Megatron ordered General Carjack and the Genocide Battalion to break off from what they were doing and take care of the starships that had been mentioned. It didn't take long to discover the location of these ships, which Shockwave's division found from its space-based positioning, and relay the information to Megatron and Carjack. They had to spread out a bit, but soon, a large military space port was discovered along with many pegasus ponies flying toward it at top speed.

Streams of earth ponies and unicorn ponies were also noticed, but they were ground-based. Not only that, there weren't many left thanks to the actions of Carjack's division. It would be a simple matter for the Genociders to destroy the spaceships before these flightless beings got anywhere near them, and then fan out to delete any ground-based ponies that had dared to show themselves.

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

Cybertron

When Violence answered his communicator, DeathStrike could hear the sound of some pitiful sod pleading for his life in the background. The voice was choppy and full of static, a sign of a voice chip that was long past the time it should have been replaced. Then, there was a quick blasting noise, and the voice went silent.

"Sorry. Can't help you - I'm busy now! It's not like these rustbuckets are going to deliver themselves to the foundry, ya know!" Violence said once there wasn't any other noise to yell over. "But don't worry. I'm sure you can take care of this guy if you've already nailed three instances of him!"

DeathStrike could hear a heavy cart start to move, and then the communicator went silent. The connection had been closed.

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

After this, DeathStrike decided to do a fly-over of the console factory. He made sure to put his cloaking on when he got close, and this turned out to be a good idea. There was now a guard manning an energy-based SAM unit stationed on the roof. This wasn't a battery like an army would use, but it was still a large single-barreled artillery cannon that could easily take an attacker out of the air.

On the ground, there were also a few guards visible. DeathStrike assumed that there was plenty more firepower inside, just waiting for him to try to enter.

After circling a couple of times, he realized that at some point, either the people in the factory would have to leave or Energon would have to be brought in. Otherwise, they would all deactivate. Not long after that, the thought of poisoning the incoming Energon.

It was hard to get any Energon delivery people. Most Decepticons would fly away with a big load, and this caused companies like Megatron Energon to make a big deal out of threatening their employees with death if any product went missing. While this was a necessary attitude on the part of Energon companies and delivery services, it caused quite a bit of resentment in the employees, who didn't want to be mere workers anyway and certainly didn't appreciate the heavy-handed approach.

This, in turn, meant that an Energon delivery bot would probably take a bribe to allow DeathStrike to tamper with the Energon. Since none would be reported missing, the deliverer wouldn't be accused of stealing any - and by the time the customer realized something was wrong with the shipment, it would be too late for him and his thirsty workers to call and complain.

DeathStrike took up a position on a tall rooftop and began to watch the ground, waiting for someone to start coming in the direction of the factory with a big delivery cart. It would probably take hours, assuming that GameDeck and his employees had their Energon tanks at average fullness now, but eventually one would have to come. Otherwise, GameDeck would have to come out at some point.

[Vallermoore]

Every Decepticon knew that if any of these Ponybots, and certainly their leader, got away, then all they needed was the right factory to mass produce more Ponybots to the point where they would become a threat, and they had no intention of letting this happen to them. The unfortunate ponies heading for the starships would never make it there before the Genocide Battalion arrived, blasted them and stamped on them like they were ants, and blasted the starships on top of that. Their souls would end up corraled in the Decepticon Afterlife before being dropped into the Realm of Punishment. The ones in the gas giant's clouds were uncovered by General Soundwave and his MilIntel Foreign Infiltration Battalion and soon their scrap dropped into the planet. Faux-Celestia found herself cut off and retreated to one of her metal castles, which had a few SAMS and ack-ack guns, and Forintel bots started looking for her Spares and Saves, which in the hurry to invade they had not done before. With her were the castle guards, the few remains of the planet's armed forces, and her strongest supporters, ringed by circle after circle of Decepticons whilst the Raider Front tore through all the Ponybot-owned planets and moons and asteroids, and showed their utter contempt for the Pony Way and everything to do with it.

Cybertron

As it turned out, Violence was too busy living up to his name to help DeathStrike, but at least he was not a foe. After thinking for a while, DeathStrike decided to offer a large bribe of Energon to whoever was delivering the Energon to the factory turned fortress to let him poison the Energon that would need to be sent in with silicon dioxide. If he were lucky enough, that might even kill his foe outright, and he would be very close to buying the tail from Ultimate Mods that he so longed to have fitted to his body and would feel complete. Such a deadly tail would be very useful when it came to solving problems of the kind that a Problem Solver was called upon to solve.

[Victorious Decepticons]

ForIntel and MilIntel both hurried to uncover the fake Celestia's Spares and Saves, which turned out to be a huge job thanks to the number of planets involved. They ended up not only using almost all of their agents, except for a few left on Cybertron to provide security, and also called in Soundwave's specialized military spy division. Eventually, they believed that they got all of the spares and saves she had, and they radioed the update to Leader Megatron.

At this point, Megatron decided to move on the castle himself, along with 100 of his most elite soldiers. He figured that there was no point in taking his entire division, because there were millions of troops in it and only a fraction would have room to get anywhere near the castle. Megatron actually didn't intend to need any troops with him, but he figured that it would be more intimidating to the enemy if he showed up with a fairly large contingent. Plus, they could watch all of the entrances and make sure that his target didn't manage to escape his wrath. He ordered some of them to stay in the air, too, just in case there was a far-off secret exit from some underground tunnel. Those in the air would be able to see for many miles around, whether visually or by scanning for heat blobs, electrical patterns, and other such hard-to-cloak signatures.

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

Meanwhile, the Raider Front was attacking all of the planets of the quickly-crumbling ponybot empire with the destructive, efficient chaos of hordes of giant metal locusts. Those on the affected worlds were terrified, yet awed, at how the raiders could come into a city and fly away with literally everything there - even the materials the buildings were made of - and leave not even a stick of rubble behind. Unfortunately for them, they had also been designated as loot, so before long, they weren't left behind either. Instead, they were thrown into everything from carts to cargo-bots to be sold as slaves.

Due to the fact that many raiders didn't think to make their carts life-supporting, only those lucky enough to be taken by clueful raiders would be alive when the gangs landed at the big slave markets of Earth. The rest, to the dismay of many raid gangs, would only be fit to be sold to a biological rendering plant by the time the loot carts were opened again.

One of the gangs that heeded the call was the Cybertronian Business Association. By now, SolarTempest had begun to see other worlds as business opportunities, so he was sort of put-out by the fact that these planets would be reverted to their pre-sapience state by the time the Decepticons were done with them. However, he also realized that there was no point in mourning them. Instead, the best course of action was to go there with about 50 other CBA members and join in the raiding. Since the latest Raid List specified "and population," he made sure that his loot carts were sealed against atmospheric loss and insulated against heat loss. HIS livestock would be sold alive.

The other gang of note was the new one formed by DeathStrike's friend. They, having been biological, also knew that it would take specialized transports to get slaves off of the target planets and over to market alive. However, since it was still a small group, they decided to focus on non-living loot. A good haul of gold, silver, or gems from some vaults would be worth more than puny humans or ponies anyway. While these things weren't worth a whole lot on Cybertron, they knew that they could sell them on other planets and then use that money to buy loads of oil. The oil would then be sold for Energon back home. Of course, if they happened to find any actual oil on a target planet, they would just raid it and skip the loot-laundering.

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

After getting the message that all of the findable spares and saves had been destroyed, Megatron and his contingent went to Faux-Celestia's castle. It only took a couple of fusion cannon blasts to take out the ack-ack guns, and the superior range of blaster fire made it easy to get rid of the SAMs before many of them could be fired. Those that were fired were easily dodged by the elite troops, who were elite in part because they did plenty of extra aerobatics practice. Megatron himself simply vaporized any SAMs that got near him. Before long, he landed in front of the castle, and found himself looking at a closed drawbridge and a big moat. Meanwhile, some troops landed on the roof and began to blast it with the intention of making holes big enough for them to jump down through.

Megatron laughed at the closed drawbridge, which was now serving as an exterior door to the castle. He gave it a full-powered fusion cannon blast, easily turning it into scorched metal shards. Then, he used his foot jets to assist a jump over the moat and into the new opening.

"Come out, come out wherever you are~!" Megatron yelled tauntingly across the outer courtyard as he strode to the next door, which led to the interior of the actual castle building. "I've come to give you an honor! The honor of being part of the next batch of Decepticon Steel!" He strode confidently across the courtyard, blasting any defending troops without slowing down.

Meanwhile, the elite troops succeeded in getting holes into the roof, and began to jump down through them ready to do combat against whatever defenders dared to try to stop them.

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

Cybertron

As DeathStrike hoped, the Energon delivery bot eagerly accepted the bribe and turned away for a moment, "not seeing" what was going on with the load. DeathStrike quickly dosed every Cube with a good amount of silicone dioxide and sealed them all back up, making sure not to spill any poison or Energon in the process.

"Okay, the 'inspection' is complete," he said, stepping away. The deliverybot nodded and went on his way with his load of Cubes, acting as though he had just been hassled by some corporate inspector instead of having made a deal. This, of course, was just part of the ruse in case someone important had been looking.

It seemed like it took forever, but it was actually less than an hour until the Cubes were opened inside the factory and everyone there began to drink their fill. DeathStrike knew that his ploy had worked when the sound of combustion engines suddenly diminished greatly, and after a few more minutes, stopped entirely. However, the loud sounds of cursing let him know that unlike some people, at least a few of these had electrical backup engines. By the sounds of it, there were 3 or 4 still functional, but they no longer had working Energon-based engines.

He considered all that he'd heard about electrical backup engines, and that they were unsuitable for battle and really only good for emergencies, stealth, or when one wanted to talk to a biological in a closed room without inadvertently gassing him. If they were as weak as people said, he would now be able to barge in and be able to win even if there were 3 or 4 defenders still online.

DeathStrike quickly checked his own manual, and it seemed to confirm what everyone said about the electrical systems. It noted that the engine could provide a decent burst of speed for a quick dodge or escape, or that it could run for about 10 hours if it was possible to move slowly. If the speed option was used, however, the engine would drain the battery in just one hour.

The last line of that section of the manual, however, is what emboldened DeathStrike to go ahead and just blast the door in. Electrical engines cannot power energy-based blasters, his manual warned in bold letters. Attempting to blast will cause the immediate depletion of the battery and shutdown of the system. It went on to say that it would still be possible to operate ballistic weaponry, such as a machine gun - but DeathStrike knew that almost nobody on Cybertron used anything like that. Those types of weapons were not only considered hopelessly obsolete, but were known to be useless against even Minimum Design Spec-level armor.

At this point, DeathStrike marched up to the side door, raised his weapons, and began to blast away. It didn't take long at all for him to get in now that all of the guards were not only inside, but had seized combustion engines.

Inside, GameDeck had his mind-transfer command already prepared, but he didn't use it yet. If he used it, he knew that he would end up in the kind of body nobody on Cybertron wanted to use. He'd end up in a body of last resort - one of his own game decks! He had indeed made a few that were capable of holding the essence of his mind, but he would lose a lot of data. Such a body would also be incredibly weak, and even though he did add transforming capabilities to these emergency spares, he had also sold them - just like DomIntel had suspected. That meant that he could end up being killed by one of his customers, who wouldn't be happy to have his game deck transform and show itself to be sapient right in his house. Still, if all else failed, he was ready to mind-transfer to one of these toy-grade bodies rather than just die.

As GameDeck was considering this frightful possibility, DeathStrike succeeded at getting in the door. In the next instant, the assassin was inside the building, with the light streaming in from outside causing him to look very frightening indeed.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

DeathStrike's plan had worked far better then he thought it would do, and he blasted his way in and proceeded to turn on his jammer and blast the guards, not wanting them coming back later wanting revenge. He wanted to leave3 his jammer running for as short a time as possible, as the longer he kept it running, the more likely it was that outside bots who had nothing to do with this would blast him to end the threat. As he was in a building, this was unlikely. He pointed his blaster close to GameDeck. "It's not personal, just business," he said, just before he blasted GameDeck, hoping his jamming had worked and sent his target to the Room of Three Screens. Only when GameDeck's boards were all blasted and his eyes darkened did he turn off the jammer and attempted to blast open a safe. It took five minutes but he got the safe open, destroyed a GameDeck Save Disc and put several cubes of Energon Supreme that GameDeck was saving for his Christmas meal in his panels. After taking photos of the scene with internal cameras he took GameDeck's body to the nearest foundry and soon enough was paid and threw the body in.

******
Elsewhere in his house Loyal Star was preparing for a new sermon explaining the Cybertronian Prosperity Day-which was, de facto Christmas by another name. Christmas was so popular amongst the Decepticon Nation and brought so much Energon flowing into the coffers of Megatron Energon and Megatron Metals that outright banning it would hit Megatron in the panels, so to speak, as well as making huge numbers of bots unhappy that they could no longer enjoy one day in the year where a gift was extremely unlikely to be some kind of connive. Even then they were sold their gifts by the giver, but at a massive discount of 95% to 99%.

*****
Ponybot Empire

The Raider Front was creating utter devastation on the various ponybot-owned planets, and many unfortunate ponies found themselves scooped up and chipped. Soon their sleek plump bodies with their gleaming cutie marks would be pulling heavy carts of ore or chipping it open. The only ponies that were not at once sent to slavery were the very youngest foals, who would be sent to be brought up properly and trained for their work. Hearths Warming would not be happening on those planets this year. SolarTempest and his syndicate would make plenty of Energon out of this, and DeathStrike's friend and his gang would find large amounts of gold and jewels and do very well out of it.

*****
All the findable Saves and Spares of the Faux-Celestia, over two hundred spares and dozens of Saves, were hunted down and destroyed or dismantled, and it was unlikely that she would live much longer. Handing a spare of her's to her planet's equivalent of Loyal Star, she told him, "Take ten guards and try and get out under cloaking, and if you are successful I will make you my Prime Minister of whatever we have left." She decided to go out blasting and using telekinesis at the same time, the latter aimed not at the internal boards and wires but at the ankles-in effect, trying to grab Megatron's ankles and pull him to the ground. "Why?" she asked as she came out blasting with the finest blasters in her Empire, blasters that would more have passed the Minimum Design Specification. "Is this because I mistreated your biologicals?" Even not counting Megatron's Divine status, she was up against one of the finest Decepticon bodies ever made. Her eyes glowed a dim but fiery blue.

*****
The Megatronists cheered as they watched this confrontation. The Ponybot responsible for all their suffering was going down, and the Realm of Punishment awaited her.

[Victorious Decepticons]

ICC Store
Right after leaving the foundry, DeathStrike flew to the ICC Store and collected his fee. The client was informed that there was now an opening in the local game deck market, and he was overjoyed to get the news. He soon arrived to congratulate DeathStrike, and even gave him a tip of several thousand extra Cubes. Now, it would be up to the would-be new game console maker to turn the market opening into a successful business.

As with new businesses anywhere that they weren't subsidized, actually becoming successful would be hard. Even in law-bound nations like the old United States, it was said that something like 80% of new companies failed within the first two years. However, thanks to DeathStrike's work, the ambitious young bot at least wouldn't have to worry about GameDeck sending another Market Share Protection Force against him.

DeathStrike made a mental note to keep an eye on the console market to see what new products came out, and if the new company actually made it. His involvement was done, though, so this would just be for curiosity's sake.

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

Loyal Star's House

Soon, Loyal Star would have the honor of delivering the sermon announcing Cybertronian Prosperity Day, which he would paint as a more properly-Decepticon version of the foreign celebration. This change was sure to be accepted, since blatantly doing something that started as a foreign tradition was always slightly irksome to the people even though they weren't willing to give up on the fun. Pretty much everyone would welcome the rebranding, and it would quickly become even more Decepticonnized than it already had been. Already, the rotund human with the red-and-white coat and long beard had been replaced with a wide-bellied transport-style Decepticon, who was painted in the colors of Santa's suit. The Decepticon version, however, had no equivalent of a beard. Instead, there was a thin white "racing stripe" across the bottom of his chin - a faint nod toward the original design.

Not long after the sermon was delivered, Loyal Star got a surprising order. He was to go to the just-conquered Phanos ex-empire, starting with the planet where the Megatronists had been collected. His first job would be to make sure that everyone who had been considered Megatronist actually was. "Many slaver empires like that will try to fit as many people as they can into the oppressed category," High Priest Warfire's written order said. "For example, on Earth, anyone with even 'one drop' of the Code associated with slaves was made into a slave in some places. In others, it was 1/8th of the codebase. In short, it was a ridiculous standard meant to enslave as many as possible. The same sort of thing might apply to these 'Megatronists' we purchased. You are to make sure that they are all 100% Megatronist, not just some random Harmonists who happened to have a Megatronist in their family 4 generations prior."

The note explained that he was to bring along a reasonably portable version of a Face of Megatron, and then make everyone come in front of it one after another. The Face would smile on the genuine Megatronists, half-smile at those who kinda-believed, and remain neutral for anyone else.

Once sorted, the next step would be to free the true believers, keep the semi-believers for further education in Megatronism (and attempts to fully convert them), and send the unbelievers to the other planets to remain slaves.

After this was done, Loyal Star was to go to each of the other conquered planets and perform similar tests on those claiming to have been Megatronists all along. These would say that they had been secretly practicing (to avoid slavery), but that they could now "admit" to their true religion.

"Most of those will be liars," Warfire's written order continued. "They'll claim fealty just to avoid the slavery or death that they figure will come if they don't claim it. However, there might be some who really have been secret followers all along. They must all be checked to see which is which."

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

The Last Stand of Faux-Celestia

Megatron looked disgusted at the why-ing of this defeated false god. He was also annoyed at having to put up a magical shield against the weird yanking motion going on at his ankles as well as shielding to block her vigorous blasting attacks.

Yet, he bothered to give her a quick answer, despite it being hard to hear him over all of her blasting noise.

"Yes, the first reason is indeed your mistreatment of my loyalists!" Megatron shouted angrily. "They should have been elevated in society, but you tried to make them the lowest part of it. Your overseers and private owners also helped seal the fate of this collection of planets. They said I didn't care about my followers, or that I didn't know what was happening to them. A few even asked 'where is your god now?' They don't have to ask that anymore! I'm right here! And of course, I care about my followers. Anyone who wants to remain in power makes sure to favor his loyalists. Otherwise there is no point for them to stay for long."

"Then I found out about your disgusting pony way, and your people's inability to think as individuals! I'd call it a waste of sapience, but someone who can't think as an individual has no sapience to waste. In fact, the Decepticon definition of sapience includes that ability as a main criterion, so they are officially non-sapient. Defeating your army wasn't a matter of conquering individual soldiers. It was more like catching schools of fish. It was so easy to predict the motions of entire battlegroups...we have video games that have better troop maneuvers! Such an abominable, non-thinking society must be brought down. We cleanse the universe of you, the same way you would clean a patch of mold off of a surface."

"Finally, I found out about YOU. You, who is so unindividual and uncreative that you don't even have your own NAME! Instead, you use Celestia's name!! Celestia, who was defeated in our war against Equestria! Why would you use someone else's name - and especially, the name of a loser?! Did you not know that it was *I* who defeated her? Did you not realize that you were tempting fate by mistreating my loyalists, and naming yourself after one of my old foes??"

"In any case, it no longer matters. Your time in this realm is through."

With that, Megatron fired his fusion cannon once, making sure to use his divine power to amplify its force so that the single blast was enough to obliterate all of the important parts of Faux-Celestia's body.

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

Meanwhile, Faux-Celestia's loyalist attempted to sneak out of the castle with his leader's last save. As soon as he got outside, the anti-cloaking detection systems of several of Megatron's elite troops picked up his presence. They all opened fire on him, and the heat of the blasting caused the save to melt and then ignite. The stench of the burning plastic-like material filled the immediate area.

He returned fire, but he was vastly outnumbered, and Megatron's elite troops also had much more skill than he did. Before long, the loyalist of the defeated monarch was deactivated as well, and then blasted to tiny bits by all of the incoming fire.

[Vallermoore]

ICC Store

If indeed GameDeck got to a GameDeck body that he had sold and managed to avoid being blasted by it's owner, he decided to stay hidden rather then have his foe come after him again and perhaps manage to outright kill him this time. The one who hired DeathStrike would now at least have a chance at a successful business, and DeathStrike notched up another success and his fee. He would check to see how close he was to getting the tail that he was so interested in. When he got it he would truly feel complete. All for now was good.

The Last Stand of Faux-Celestia

FauxCelestia was not a weak bot and had defeated an ordinary Decepticon or two before encountering Megatron, but she was up against a divine being, who on top of that, also had one of the finest Decepticon bodies ever made. Even pre Divine Megatron could have quite quickly turned her to scrap. Megatron really didn't like his loyalists being chipped and enslaved, or in effect being called uncaring, stupid, and weak. Loyalists were what made Megatron not just an immensely strong bot, but a God who given enough time could take over the universe, and when He had briefly been killed, a loyalist had brought Him back. As long as He had loyalists, there was nothing He needed to fear. Also, he found the Pony Way inane to the point of being disgusting. He was telling the truth when he said that dealing with the Ponybot armies was like catching schools of fish. Equestria in some ways had put up a better fight. At least the ponies there had some common sense, something lacking amongst the Ponybots. With FauxCelestia blown to bits, and her loyalist quickly killed before he could make use of her last Save Disc (he ended up in the Neutral Realm as loyalty to one's leader was still a virtue) FauxCelestia briefly found herself in a room oif Three Screens before being pulled into the Realm of Punishment.

She found herself in a flesh and blood body of a sapient pony, the race she had admired so much, with a broken crown as her cutie mark. She was in a dark tunnel and she nervously clip-clopped along it, knowing that whatever was going to happen to her here was nothing nice.

Loyal Star's House

With just a few days to go until the first Cybertronian Prosperity Day, Loyal Star preached a sermon about it, making it clear that there still would be plenty of fun on that day. "Centuries before we took over Earth, some biologicals tried to outright ban their Christmas, which caused a huge revolt and then made it go undercover. Cybertronian Prosperity Day will be just as fun as Christmas was, and we do not need to fear our God being a killjoy." An hour or so later he recieved a message from High Priest Warfire. He had a duty to preform. Taking a Face of Megatron that could fit in his panels but was still huge by biological standards, he transformed and flew into outer space. For a few seconds, he looked at the "ball bearing" that was now his home, with feelings of the patriotic love that Decepticons shared for Cybertron, and then went into FTL and was soon at Phanos, which was still in a real mess, having only been taken over a day or two ago. On the other planets, the very last Ponybots were being blasted into scrap. Here were the now de-chipped Megatronists that had been enslaved after either being uncovered by Faux-Celestia's Domintel equivilent or narked on by some nasty informer. There were both sapient ponies, now flaunting their Decepticon Seal cutie marks, and humans, all very happy to be freed-something rarely done by Decepticons. A handful of Decepticon soldiers watched to stop slavers from scooping up these loyalists, and had needed to do two or three warning shots at any who tried.

This was their first ever sight of a Megatronist Full Priest with his shifting Priestly Paint-they had only had Acolytes before, and it was an amazing sight to see Loyal Star towering over them. After some cheers and clapping Loyal Star explained "I am Loyal Star, a Full Priest of Megatron, here to sort out the genuine Megatronists, those who are basically loyalists who could be considered for want of a better term "accidental heretics" who just need a little basic doctrine training, and those who are not Megatronists at all-and those who are not at all Megatronists-they will be enslaved again, except for those who are too young to know what religion or politics or anything like that is." He explained the procedure and gently put down the Face of Megatron, and watched them walk in front of it, hoping they were genuine.

[Victorious Decepticons]

GameDeck had indeed attempted to reach one of his "last-ditch" bodies, but with DeathStrike's jamming active, his mind-transfer failed completely. Soon, he found himself in the Neutral Realm. However, he didn't end up stuck as a machine of labor, because he had avoided or risen above peasant work during his life and become a company owner. Instead, he was put in charge of one of the Decepticon Afterlife's many factories, and this time, there was no competition trying to horn in.

The Afterlife Administrator also cleared up just what had motivated his killer. He learned that he was the latest score on a paid assassin's record, and that the one behind it was the last guy whose factory GameDeck had attacked. However, the assassin really didn't have anything personal against him, and instead, was motivated by the desire to be the best at his craft and to be able to afford upgrades.

GameDeck was still quite angry about the turn of events, and vowed that if DeathStrike ended up in the same realm that he was in, he would do his best to kick him out of it in the same way he'd been kicked out of the Lands of the Living: By deactivating him! He went about running his new, Neutral Realm factory with the same eagerness he'd had for his old one, but would always keep an ear out for rumors of DeathStrike's arrival in this realm. He knew that Problem Solver was a dangerous job, and that he also had plenty of time to wait. Later, he even wrote "DeathStrike" down the barrel of his right blaster, making it literally "a blaster with his name on it."

Whether all of this would be in vain remained to be seen. For now, DeathStrike was still quite alive, and busy counting his money.

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

The Realm of Punishment

Faux-Celestia walked very tentatively down the long, solid-walled hallway, vaguely remembering that this kind of a setup was a bad thing. She even associated it with a name she'd heard long ago...Temple Grandin. A human from Earth... But who was she? What was she famous for again? Hmmm...she couldn't quite place it.

Soon, she found herself coming up on several other ponies, all waiting in a line. Far ahead, she could see some light just barely making it past the bodies in front of her. Slowly but surely, the line moved up, but with a slight pause between each move, indicating that something was happening one pony at a time.

Eventually, she found herself at the head of the line. There was a bright light shining right over a structure with bars running lengthwise down the side, and beyond that, what appeared to be an open space with a concrete floor. She paused for a moment, but another pony bumped into her, pushing her into the structure.

With a clang, the front of it banged shut, trapping her around her shoulders so she couldn't move forward. At the same exact time, a strong steel bar came down behind her, stopping her from backing out.

"Herd animals are so easy to slaughter," a human remarked as he positioned a device over a precise spot on her head. "Just line 'em all up in a tunnel, put a bright light over the crush, and they'll follow each other right to their dooms. Then *boom*~" With that, he pulled the trigger on the device, sending a bolt of metal through her skull and into her brain.

Normally, that would have been the end of her story, but since this was the Realm of Punishment, it was just the beginning. She was now completely immobile and seemed dead, but was actually aware of the next stages of the slaughtering process and felt the pain as if she was alive. All through it, workers commented on how stupid herd animals were, how they were able to kill over 1,000 an hour because none of the beasts ever did anything outside of their 'mindless little programs,' and how they would be able to process everything the Genociders sent them within just a few days. "It'll be no trouble to get 10,000,000 of these all chopped up and sent to the stores," workers were laughing.

Finally, after the slaughter process finally got to the point where Faux-Celestia's brain was taken out and run through a grinder marked FOR DOG FOOD, her perception stopped - for a moment.

The next thing she knew, she was being reborn as a foal, again a biological one. This time, her cutie mark was simple: Three drops of sweat. After a couple of months of being with a mother pony, who was detached and cruel, she was yanked away by a small robot and put to work in a mine pulling carts. Robots the size of short humans rode in the carts and would crack their whips against her flanks if she slowed down. They made sure to treat her just like a regular horse would be, which is to say, as a beast of burden and nothing more. These bots often talked about how that's all herd animals were good for, because they had no individuality. "You don't even have to come up with different ways to train them," the bots sneered. "Heck, all you have to do to get one to give you rides is keep sitting on it and don't let it buck you off. Eventually it'll just give up and be your free taxi!"

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

The Sorting of the Megatronists

To Loyal Star's delight, many of the former slaves who had been considered Megatronists were at least favorable to the religion, though as expected, there were plenty who had been categorized as such on flimsy pretenses as well. Some of these were very unhappy with Megatronism, considering it - instead of their government - the source of their woes.

However, the loyal ones were not only very loyal, but had been using the Decepticon Way to spread the correct teachings of the Book of Megatron amongst each other with excellent results. There was only minor "accidental heresy" among those who had been in close proximity to any staunch Megatronists, and in some cases, none at all.

The Face of Megatron efficiently indicated who was who, and they were appropriately separated. Those who were found to be false Megatronists were sent back to slavery, while the others would fare much better.

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

This, however, was the easy part. The next phase would involve going to the other planets, where random people were now claiming to have been secret Megatronists all along. Most of these would surely be liars, just hoping to avoid getting killed or enslaved. Loyal Star would only have to test them, not do the killing, and he was glad about this. However, he knew exactly what the government expected when, upon his arrival to the first planet that was actually part of the Phanos ex-empire, he was met by 10 Genociders showing their seals. "Anyone who fails, you send 'em over to OUR enclosure," they instructed. "We'll take care of 'em nice and quick."

Loyal Star looked at the setup on the first planet. There was a big area, and he would be at the front of it with the Face. Then, there was a fenced-off walkway leading to his left, and one to his right. The creatures that passed the test would go to the right, into a large, grassy area. Those who didn't pass would go left, into an area with high, solid walls. From within that area, a low, mechanical sound could be heard. Loyal Star had seen what made the noise while he was flying in. It was a temporary biological rendering pit capable of high-volume operation.

Loyal Star hoped that there would be far fewer liars than expected, but he also knew that his Divine Leader was probably right. Many people would say whatever they thought would keep them from being killed, even if it meant professing faith in a religion they secretly despised...