An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

"We are businesspeople, and we'd like to talk to the one in charge of making deals here," Navigator said to the 15-year-old-looking person who was peeking through the speakeasy-style hatch. "We're sure that we could arrange something agreeable..." He trailed off, leaving an insinuation that the deal would be a shady one.

"Nobody here does business." The slot slammed shut. It was an obvious lie. Navigator put his hand on the panel as if to try to open it back up, but it was already locked.

Loyal Star was going to knock again, but Navigator stopped him and indicated that they should go away. The two walked off slowly. Loyal Star looked dejected, and Navigator held his head down. However, when Loyal Star glanced over, he saw that Navigator's expression wasn't actually sad at all. Instead, he appeared quite neutral and unbothered.

Once they got back to a more private area, Navigator explained. "There's got to be a password people use before they can do business with the guy. We're going to need to wait a while."

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

Later, they went to the market in the center of town and bought a decent amount of groceries. As is typical in places where electricity - and therefore, refrigeration - is spotty, most of the food was either produce or cured meat. Navigator chose a large leg of lamb and a ham, several of the local fruits and vegetables, and finally, a big keg of the local brew. He did haggle a bit, but was quite generous about the price he settled on - he wanted people to see that they were wealthy. After taking the long way home and checking out some of the other available services, which included a shoe repair, a competent-seeming seamstress shop, a potter, and a shop with big-name cosmetics for cheap, they arrived back at the house.

Immediately, Navigator whipped out a small communicator and set it up as a radio receiver. He didn't say anything about what he was doing, and was momentarily shocked when Loyal Star asked. Navigator immediately shushed him, and then came over and whispered in his ear. "It's to listen to the bug I planted when I touched that door panel." Right after saying that, he made sure to say something basic about the food, just in case anyone might be outside listening.

"I've traveled all over the universe," he said later as they tasted some of the sweeter fruit. "Not only that, I got paid for it. I'm sure you've heard of the 'company' I worked for...you know, the same one that sold us these clothes..." To an outsider, it would seem like nothing but a bit of shop talk or some mild boasting. "That got a bit old, though. There's only so many times you can do something before it gets boring. I always seemed to end up in the copy room. As a Priest, I can finally use all of my skills. And, I can finally walk in the open and announce myself as an official representative, instead of always being in the back rooms. Still...it takes a certain personality to do The Other Job, and I am a 'market researcher' through and through. I am glad, though, that I do not still have the restrictions that were involved in that work."

Navigator, of course, was actually referring to being a ForIntel agent who would pretend to be a Xerox machine in order to have top-secret information delivered to him right through his platen. It was a very effective ruse for collecting data, but maddeningly boring - and definitely not a suitable tactic for someone who wanted to be far more public. Needless to say, Loyal Star couldn't admit out loud that he knew what Navigator was referring to. He just nodded sympathetically.

"In any case," Navigator said as he put his solar charger in the window and bade Loyal Star to to the same, "I've already spotted some of our target's operations. You did notice that high-end cosmetics store, I presume? Those companies only do business in areas where the average income is about 10 times higher than it is here. You can buy their items on the gray market - the market where they're legit, but not sold by authorized distributors - for about 80% of the usual going rate. So, gray market means you pay about 20 nuggets each for those brands. But that shop is selling them for 1 nugget per bottle." Obvious fakes.

"There's something fishy about that seamstress shop, too," he went on. "You can see that all of the clothes people around here are wearing are homemade, except for what the few richer people are wearing. The quality of the demo clothes on display was good - better than the homemade - however, it isn't quite good enough to match those. She also didn't seem to have any customers. So that's a front. What we don't know yet is what it's a front for. I'm guessing that it's for humanity's favorite profession, though. The one that, on most worlds, they call the 'oldest profession.' We'll decide to take a walk later tonight and see if she suddenly has more customers..."

Suddenly, the communicator made noise. Two knocks were heard, followed by the sliding of the door's slot. "Orangelos." The sound of the door opening followed, followed by a couple of footsteps. The sound of the door closing was next, and then, the communicator was silent again.

"And there we have it." Navigator said with the tone of a professional who had been successful once again. "We shall visit again in about four days - long enough where it seems like we might have made an actual connection. And when we go back, we'll go just a few minutes before this time of day."

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

That night, the two went back out and made their way across the street from the seamstress' shop. To Navigator's surprise, it was not now crowded with johns. In fact, it seemed closed up tight, with a candlelight coming from the small loft above. However, it wasn't long before Navigator tugged on his ear.

Loyal Star turned up his hearing, and sure enough, there were sounds of comings and goings emanating from the back of the building. Strange terms were muttered, and after the sound of money passing, the sound of bags changing hands was heard. Sometimes, the sound of small empty bottles could be detected.

Navigator leaned over. "Cosmetics bottles and ingredients." he muttered in very soft and low tones. He avoided whispering - ironically, the audio frequencies of whispers were some of the easiest for the human ear to detect, and the hissing of any sibilant sounds within them were serious attention-getters. Low-voiced mutters were far better for talking without being noticed, and far harder for nosy people to be able to understand from a distance if they did happen to hear them.

They waited for a decent amount of time, during which Navigator savored - or perhaps, pretended to savor - what appeared to be a cigar. After it fully appeared like they were just enjoying their new location, they got up to go home. That's when they heard someone attempting to sneak out of one of the buildings behind them, perhaps to try to get the jump on them. Navigator reached his hand into his pocket, pretending to have a gun. He did have his real blasters, but he thought that he might avoid trouble altogether if he made it more obvious that messing with him was a very bad idea. There was no real advantage in fighting just now, when nobody was around to see, though if a fight happened he would make sure that the other guy was never able to try it again.

"Ho, ho!" A voice came. The pair now turned, and they saw a silhouette in the shadows. "You have something to sell? The buyer is over there~!" A hand pointed at the seamstress shop.

Navigator made his way over to the shadowy guy at a race-walk. The walking gait fooled the human into expecting him to come more slowly, and before he knew it, Navigator was right in front of him with Loyal Star just behind. "I've come to sell you and your people a ticket out of that nug-an-item ratwheel business," the Priest started his sales pitch. "You are surely sick of going through all of this just to make 5 or 10 peanuts a day." Navigator flared his shirt out a bit, showing off its fineness. "My organization can take you from that play-toy copy business to international success. But I won't be selling to some low-level operative who only sources raw materials that can be made from the dust of this road. I'm not here to sell sand. I'm here to sell success."

The lieutenant who had been in the shadows stepped out just a bit. If he was being observed by humans, he would have looked like a 30-something guy with about a 1" black beard, hair that could have been cut two months ago, with rough white-guy skin and with a t-shirt and pants made of some sort of rugged dark tan fabric. He was just under 6' tall and lanky. To the robots' night vision, the shadows were now insignificant. They could easily see that his shirt was likely a secondhand one that had been sent to the country by a charity in a much richer nation. It was dirty. They could also see that there was a bulge in the pocket of the pants, and that it surely wasn't natural. A gun. The way he stood indicated that he likely had another gun in the waistband at the small of his back. They sure take this fake make-up business seriously, Loyal Star thought silently. I wonder if it's a cover for something else?

The gang guy stared at them hard. "You don't know what yer talkin' about. I'll tell the boss about you, though. He'll have a good laugh."

With that, he stepped back into the shadows, careful not to turn his back on them.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Once at home, Loyal Star told Navigator his suspicion. "I bet the 'make-up' is really a delivery vehicle for some other thing, like drugs," he said. "If a non-user goes in, she gets the fake stuff for 1 nugget and thinks she has a deal. But someone in the know will get the 'special' kind. I just bet!"

Navigator nodded. "It'll be easy enough to check out. We'll go shopping tomorrow and see if there's a suspiciously expensive kind for sale. Then we'll buy that. If they bother to ask why two guys are buying make-up, we'll just say we're sending it home to our mums in the capital. In a city, nobody would ask - any money is good money at a proper store. But you never know about these hick towns." Navigator went into his room and returned with what seemed like a few small chips of gravel. "Of course, I'll spread a few of these around, too." Bugs. They were indistinguishable from the sort of road grit that normally made its way into the shops, and even in the somewhat odd locations it would end up in this time, would never be suspected by the people in a town like this - a town that no government would ever bother to spy on.

Loyal Star looked curious. Where was Navigator getting all of this stuff? As if in response, Navigator got out the town map they had brought and silently pointed to the notation that was on it. FI was here. FI, apparently, had left some strategic donations for the upcoming Temple.

[Vallermoore]

Navigator knew well how to gain the needed password-he placed a bug on the door, and the two of them went away to talk and wait for the bug to pick up the needed password and relay it back to them. The two talked together over fruit and in a very Decepticonish way, unknowable to those who were not the finest life in the universe, Navigator told Loyal Star that he used to be a Forintel bot before he became a Priest. As a pony went by, led by it's owner with some boxes and bags on it's back, Loyal Star said "I used to work with ponies, in fact I was surrounded by them before I found a far better job, the best job you can imagine. In job terms, it was the ultimate upgrade." In a roundabout way, he was telling Navigator that he used to be a sapient pony before he became a Decepticon, something that very few bots knew. It was a symbol of trust in Navigator that he gave him this information, since there were some bots out there who had a deep dislike for sapient ponies or any bots who had even been sapient ponies. Since trust was quite rightly very rare amongst bots, where it did exist, it was highly prized. They were on a mission anyway, so for Navigator to attack him would mean the failure of the mission-and that would go very poorly back on Cybertron.

All the same when he defragged he silently set himself to wake if anyone entered the room where he slept. He was pretty sure he could trust Navigator not to attack him because of his pony origins , but it made sense to be careful, plus some idiot burglar might try and burgle the place. He dreamed that he was flying with Megatron by his side-a very pleasant dream, and then Navigator woke him up. Soon enough they were out shopping again. If Navigator did secretly dislike Loyal Star for his pony origins he showed no sign of it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Navigator could tell that his charge had once been biological due to his genuine enjoyment of the food he had eaten. To Navigator, pretending to need food was just a pain; it felt weird to chew and swallow, and cleaning out the undigested fraction from his human food processing module was nasty. Loyal Star, on the other hand, ate with relish and considered the cleaning aspect to be worth it. Still, Navigator was surprised when he said he "worked with ponies." Ponies~! It answered a lot of questions, the foremost one being why he kept having so much trouble with softness. It also answered the question of why he went for the fruits first and seemed to have no real interest in the meat.

Though Navigator considered all of this information and how it fit together, he wasn't unduly put off by the former-poniness that Loyal Star admitted to. He'd been to many planets and interacted with many species, and he was long past being shocked by much of anything when it came to design specifications. There were few species he absolutely could not abide, Autobots and Daleks being chief among them. Perhaps surprisingly, he didn't think much of humans either. He was used to having to deal with them as part of his job and could hide his disdain with perfection, but he'd seen enough butts and dicks during his days as an undercover copy machine to think that the human species had a large percentage of fairly nasty idiots. What caused them to be so obsessed with photocopying their rear ends and privates in an office setting was one of the few things he had never been able to figure out.

"At least you didn't 'work with' these ants." He muttered as they went out for the day.

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

Soon they arrived at the cosmetics store, and they turned heads as soon as they walked in. A middle-aged woman with acne was buying some product that appeared to be the same as what she had on her face, and Navigator looked ready to facepalm. Clearly the cause of the acne was the fake product! Yet here she was buying more. After she left, the tired-looking lady running the place came over and asked if she could help. She looked quite curious about what two rich men would be doing in such a store, but she didn't have a chance to pry. Navigator immediately used the excuse of wanting to send something from the town back to his mother in the city, and seamlessly slipped in a request for "the absolute best you have to offer."

Fortunately for him, the lady was a simple townswoman who didn't find the story fishy. The thought of making some actual money drowned out any suspicion, and immediately, she beckoned the pair over to the counter. There, she unlocked a surprisingly secure cabinet and pulled out a bottle of foundation that, she claimed, was worth 100 nuggets (the local currency). Navigator chewed her down to 90 nugs and then accepted it.

"It's rare you see anyone dressed so well around here!" The shop lady couldn't help but comment. "What do you do, anyway? They've been saying you're living in that huge house down the road. And, some say that weird things happened the day you arrived..." She was referring to the lightning and Decepticon Seal, though she didn't admit that she knew that the bolts had had hit a gang of thieves.

With this, she became the first recipient of Navigator's conversion pitch. He explained that they were missionaries of Megatronism, a new religion to the planet, and were there to offer not only a new belief system, but a new way of doing things. "Once you learn the Way of our Divine Leader," he promised, "you won't be up all night taking deliveries and then up most of the day selling stuff like this." He moved his arm to indicate the many bottles of cheap stock in the store. "Not only that, you'll get to travel far and wide, and bring loot back with you each time."

The shop lady listened politely, and accepted a brochure Navigator handed her, but she was clearly skeptical. Soon enough, the priests were out the door.

"Wait, wait!" A voice came from behind them. "I think I gave you the wrong product!" Navigator and Loyal Star looked at each other, and without a word, they zipped between two buildings. "Cloak up!" Navigator ordered, and immediately, Loyal Star realized that these bodies were able to do that. By the time the woman got to where they were, the space between the buildings appeared blank. She went through the space - not realizing that she had ran right by the two, who were now pressed up against one of the buildings - and searched behind them. After several minutes, she came back through, muttering about how "the boss" was going to be "so angry" with her. She again didn't realize that she was walking right past her two cloaked customers.

Back at home, it took Loyal Star only a moment to open up the bottle of "foundation" and dump it out. Some sort of makeup poured out into the stoppered-up sink, but within the mess, there was clearly something solid. Loyal Star picked it out and wiped it off. It appeared to be a high quality cut diamond, likely taken out of a ring.

"Ahhh..." Navigator said. "Stolen diamonds. People who buy the 'good stuff' are really buying those. Then, they must send them off to another area, still in those bottles. The mail system would never bother to look at something like a bottle of makeup. I bet that the guy at the end of the chain is some jewelry store that sells them at full price. Meanwhile, these small-timers think they have it made because they scored a few nuggets off of a gem worth..." He peered at the diamond. "...I'd guess 1000 nuggets. See if there are any more in that goo."

Loyal Star fished around in the sink, and sure enough, there were more. This bottle had contained five. At retail, that would have cost 5,000 nuggets; the fencing ring had made a gross of 100 and even less - perhaps far less - in profit.

Navigator suddenly paused as if he'd just realized something. His intel file said that this gang was into counterfeiting. Perhaps the makeup wasn't all that they were counterfeiting! He cleaned off the diamond even better and then peered at it through the light. Then, he set it on the counter and gave it a good, hydraulically-powered bang. In an instant, it shattered.

"Never mind that," he laughed. "I guess 20 nuggets is a lot of money for a hunk of glass!" Then, he looked down at his hand with dismay. Blood-colored fluid was coming out. "Damn these soft-skinned bodies," he complained, and turned to go to his room to make a repair.

~~~~~~~~~~

Before they could do much else, a frantic knock came at the door. It was the shop woman. Navigator told Loyal Star to let her in. As soon as she came in and got the door closed behind her, she began to beg for the makeup back. She almost wailed when Navigator came out with four "diamonds" and said that he'd smashed up the fifth. "They'll beat me, they'll beat me, what am I going to do? I thought you were an authorized buyer!" She cried out.

Navigator appeared to say a prayer, and then told her to hold out her hand. When she did so - while giving him a look like she thought he was nuts - a patch of dust seemed to coalesce in her palm. Within a couple of seconds, a newly-created diamond appeared there. It was a genuine one, created on the spot from the carbon in the dust.

"Behold the power of the Divine Leader," Navigator intoned.

After letting her collect herself, he continued. "Now ask yourself if you want to spend the rest of your life being afraid for your safety over nearly-worthless glass, or if you'd rather join the One whose idea of a small operation involves billions of nuggets' worth of cash transfer. That is the level of success offered by Divine Leader Megatron. And, not only that, you need not fear spiritual condemnation for using...alternative business methods."

He handed the four glass diamonds back and let her keep the real one, and sent her on her way to consider the alternative he had offered.

[Vallermoore]

As it turned out, unlike some Decepticons who had lost bodies in the conquest of Equestria, Navigator had no hatred for sapient ponies, and certainly not for ex sapient ponies who had passed all of Immigration's tests and were therefore Decepticons through and through. Autobots were another thing entirely and like most Decepticons he had taken part in the destruction of the planet once known as Beauty. Later they would discover the existence of a fake-diamond trafficking firm, and make their first chance at gaining new converts. The woman would tell at least a few of her close friends about Megatronism.

Just as they were leaving shouts of "Stop Thief" filled the air and a young thief came running out of an alley." Get behind me" Loyal Star said, and then turned on his cloaking so the several pursuing police officers missed their target. When they had gone he decloaked and said "We are priests of Megatron, and if you worship Him, he may well grant you luck." He gave him a small pamphlet on Megatronism and the boy thanked him and was soon on their way. It was small beginnings, but every religion newly introduced in this way to a planet started small.

[Victorious Decepticons]

As time went on, the locals slowly loosened up around the newcomers. They had also become very curious about the priests, especially since they seemed to have endless money. With this money, they hired several carpenters to fix up the parts of the big house that needed repairs, and then hired craftsmen to create ornate carved designs for the wooden fascia out front. The nature of these designs soon became the most talked-about thing among the honest class thanks to tales told by the woodworkers at what had first seemed to be a house, but turned out to be the local pub. One thing was true of all biological nations, and that's that there was always booze, and where it was legal, there was always a bar of some sort in every town.

What got the craftsmen talking was the symbology included in the carving they were doing. The primary element in the center was a face that was clearly robotic instead of human, and the priests had paid a lot of money on the dye used for its red eyes. This dye was infused with luminescence, so it glowed at night. Not only that, they had gone to the nearest larger town to pick up that dye, thereby bypassing the local "cosmetics" industry and ensuring its genuinity. Then, after some scrollwork, there were two more strange icons. They debated over whether these symbols stood for good or bad. The symbols had straight edges like one might find on something machined, yet they seemed vaguely fox-like. They also seemed to almost smile, but in a mischievous way. These icons also had eyes that were done with special glow-in-the-dark dye, though it was slightly washed out compared to the eyes of the face in the middle. After these, the plans called for more scrollwork, which would go all the way to the ends of the fascia board.

"This all clearly has some kind of meaning!" They said over mugs of the local beer-like brew. "We need to make sure that it's not praising Demonos!" The others in the pub, all now at least slightly drunk, agreed. As a group, they got up and left the building. A slightly angry air was around the mob, which was emboldened by its drinking.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I think it's time we make our move," Navigator was saying as he drew up some more money. "By now, Elkon has surely heard more about us, and everyone else is seeing our Temple's insignia being carved. Not only that, the cosmetics lady has closed up shop. I saw her sneaking away from town. She looked really beaten-up. Clearly she kept that real diamond and is going off to the bigger town 25 miles over. If my guess is right, she'll sell it off there and use the money to leave this one-horse town far behind. I just hope that she has the proper appreciation for Megatron's gift, and spreads the word..."

Before Loyal Star could respond, the double doors at the front resounded with angry bangs. The two turned and looked down the hallway and prepared to go to them. Both energized their blasters just in case - by the sound of the door pounding, it was likely that a fight could occur. "Keep your blasters hidden but ready for now. If they start a fight, use your fists as your first response," Navigator said, "but be ready to escalate if the situation warrants it."

Upon opening the door, they were met by the gaggle of suspicious drunks from the bar. "We're here to find out just what the hell you are!" Said the leader, a muscular laborer type. His voice had a slight slur, but he was still coherent enough to know what was going on around him. Behind him, about a dozen men in varying states of sobriety watched with hostility.

"What do those weird symbols mean!" Others demanded. "You'd better prove that you're not for Demonos!"

Navigator put his hand on Loyal Star's shoulder. "Explain it to them, Missionary," he commanded. This would be Loyal Star's first official speech on this planet.

[Vallermoore]

Loyal Star was feeling pleased with himself as an open Megatronist Temple slowly took shape, without the police or the military of this world interfering. Apparently the king of this country allowed at least some freedom of religion. Not long afterwards, an angry, semi-drunken crowd approached. Whilst they had no guns, at least a few of them had sturdy sticks and knives and there were a lot of them. Whilst because of their blasters Loyal Star and Navigator were in no danger of being lynched, it was the voice chip that would win converts here, not the blaster. Loyal Star would have to persuade this angry, semi-drunken crowd to support them. If he could, it would go a long way towards earning the rank of Full Priest that he had gone through so much hard work (and in transferring to a robot body great physical pain) to try and get.

"What do those weird symbols mean! You'd better prove that you're not for Demonos!" That was clearly their Satanic equivalent.

"People, we are most certainly not devil worshippers. We worship the great Megatron. If you join His religion and follow His Way, we can help you in both this world and the next. In fact, the very best follows of His Way might escape death altogether. Megatron understands that those who have never heard of Him are unlikely to follow Him without some kind of proof that He even exists, but reserves His greater miracles for those who already follow Him. However, if a lesser miracle is needed to prove to you that we are not servants of Evil and that He is real, He would gladly do one."

"Can He fix my bad teeth?" asked one of the leaders of the mob.

"I will see if He will agree to do so."

Loyal Star made a silent prayer to Megatron explaining the situation, pointing out that a small miracle like this would really help to convince people to join them, and he got a silent reply. "Ah, Loyal Star, I remember you well. Because you do have a good point and these people truly have never heard of Me, and because I am still pleased with you for bringing me back to life whilst others were being traitors, I will help you this time, but remember, I normally save My help for my loyal worshippers. Unless you have no hope of escaping an outright death otherwise, I would advise you not to ask directly for My help again until you have a large number of said loyal worshippers properly trained in the Decepticon Way."

There was a flash, and the man's teeth were healed. Loyal Star said "This evening at 7:00PM we will be having our first meeting in the Temple, and my fellow Priest here, of a high rank then me, will be giving the first sermon to all who wish to attend about what Megatronism is and what it is not." The crowd left and the minor Megatronist miracle quickly became the talk of the whole town.
When the time arrived around five hundred people at all levels of life from the beggar to the local noble had turned up to hear Navigator preach his first proper sermon. Loyal Star felt that at such an important time, his Temple superior should be the one to preach as he was inexperienced in it and didn't want to preach the wrong thing by mistake and commit accidental heresy in the process, which would not help his clerical career one bit.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron had gotten many requests from people since declaring his godhood, but he never expected that fixing some drunk's teeth would be one of them. In an instant, he analyzed the human's mouth and soon realized that nearly all of his teeth were rotten. He even had a couple of abscesses. No wonder he drank! One of alcohol's effects was the deadening of pain, though it took copious amounts to get the full effect.

The Decepticon Leader knew that if he just caused new enamel to form, the guy would be back in the same position within a year or two. There seemed to be no dentists in the little burg, and if there were, the guy had no intention of going to any of them. Because of this, Megatron decided to do the repair in a way that would prevent any decay from ever happening again, and that would - in the expected absence of any further maintenance - last about 20 years. If the man could be persuaded to do proper hygiene, his new teeth would last a lifetime.

~~~~~~~~~

With a flash, the drunken man experienced two things. First, he was suddenly sober. Megatron wasn't going to do a miracle only to have the recipient not even be sure that anything happened the next day! Next, he found a full set of decay-free teeth in his mouth, and the abscesses disappeared. When he felt the teeth with his tongue, they were smoother than normal. Some test bites revealed that they fit together perfectly.

If the guy went to a dentist that had an x-ray machine, he would find that his teeth weren't just restored. They were replaced with a full set of implants. Megatron was not going to use inferior parts for his work when he could avoid it, and human teeth were definitely inferior parts. These Cybertronian wonders, on the other hand, were all but invincible. The only reason they would last just 20 years (barring a change in the recipient's dental habits) was because the gums and jaw - still biological parts - would eventually get periodontal disease and allow the teeth to fall out.

From the outside, the teeth looked as glorious as those of a movie star. There was just one little difference: Each molar had a tiny Decepticon Seal on its chewing surface, and the backsides of the front teeth also had them. No one would notice unless they stared into his mouth, but every time he saw his molars in the mirror - and he was sure to check them out as soon as he could - he would be reminded of just who had provided these teeth. Megatron was not one to leave anything he did up for guesswork or leave openings for some interloper to claim the credit. In fact, if this man ever denied that his new teeth came from the Divine Leader, they would instantly become cursed.

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

Almost immediately, the entire town of 1500 people had heard the story, though some heard versions that were less reliable than others. A full third of them decided to show up at the Temple to hear the first sermon. When they arrived, the double doors were open and large lanterns were ablaze. The lanterns used lamp oil, acquired for a nontrivial sum, so they would stay lit even if the electricity cut out.

At the rear, a heavy velvet curtain separated the temple area from the hallway leading to the residential rooms. The main part of the rear, however, held a large wooden oval - it would later be carved into a Face of Megatron and then blessed in a special ceremony. For now, however, the carving hadn't even started. Navigator had decided that it was better to open the doors now, while the people were highly receptive, than wait until everything looked perfect and perhaps lose the peak conversion opportunity.

Since the seating had not yet been done either, Navigator had everyone sit on the floor after making an opening prayer. This was normal enough for the area, so there were no complaints.

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

Once everyone was situated, Navigator began to speak. His first topic was Megatron himself: Who he was, where he was from, and most importantly, that he was a living and tangible god. He then went on to explain that when Megatron did something, he never left any doubt about who did it. "It is Megatron's divine will that there be no atheists," he announced in his booming, preacher's voice. "And he firmly believes that the biggest cause of atheism is a lack of proof. You will never have to wonder if Megatron did something. When he does, he will put his Seal on it, or an image of his face, or some other unmistakable 'signature.' If you do not see anything of this kind anywhere on a thing, or an event happens and no such sign appears, then it was not Megatron's doing. It is as simple as that. There is just one exception: If Megatron is up to something where his Seal would interfere with what he was up to, such as creating counterfeit goods. By their very nature, counterfeit goods must be produced exactly like the original or they won't pass."

The mention of counterfeit goods got everyone's ears pricked up. What preacher talks about counterfeiting, much less says that his god does it?! Navigator paused, allowing the curiosity to reach its peak and carefully studying each person's face to see their reactions to the idea.

"As I mentioned before, Divine Leader Megatron is the actual Leader of the Decepticons. This is not an honorary or spiritual title, but a governmental one. And the Decepticons are a people who have made themselves great through piracy, counterfeiting, and what those in this village refer to as alternative business. It is a lifestyle and culture that has worked very well, and now spreads across the universe. This culture includes many elements, and together, they are known simply as the Decepticon Way."

"The Decepticon Way is a way of great liberation for the followers of Divine Leader Megatron. You all have surely noticed that, just 40 miles to the north, there is a town that is home to some of Unterra's most productive oil wells. There, everyone is quite wealthy even though it is the oil pumps, rather than them, who do the work. How would you like to own those wells?" Navigator paused, allowing everyone to imagine having that ownership. "Under the current system, you're supposed to be happy to not own them. To have to beg for the fuel to run the town's single power generator..."

As if on cue, the electricity went out and the temple was lit only by its lamps. Navigator and Loyal Star had not set this up in advance, so they looked appropriately surprised. On Cybertron, however, a smiling Divine Leader was not surprised at all.

"Anyway," Navigator went on, not knowing that Megatron had caused the very convenient outage, "I'm sure you're all sick of being treated as a tenth-class backwater and being forced to live in poverty just because you don't have the wells. And I'm REALLY sure that the idea of being happy with what you have even when that's practically nothing grates on your sense of logic. I already know that some of you have been trying to use a version of the Decepticon Way to improve your lives. That cosmetics store, for instance..." The entire group nodded at the mention of that store. It was an open secret that it was really there for shady business, though not everyone knew just what the shady business involved.

"This sort of dealing is not against the Way of the Divine Leader. Instead, he rejoices when his followers throw off the shackles of laws meant to prevent it. Some of his most well-known blessings don't come in flashes or make Seals in the sky. Instead, they come in the form of increased success for those who practice the Decepticon Way. Some of you have known the glory of being faster than the police chasing you; as a loyal follower of Megatron, you will have the blessing of being fleet of foot much more often. While you won't be completely uncatchable, you'll have what some would call extraordinary luck."

The crowd's reaction was now very mixed. Some were outright grinning at these claims, but others looked nervous or even hostile. Navigator quickly moved to defuse this hostility.

"Divine Leader Megatron knows that not everyone is instantly ready to practice the Way in its purest form," he said, easily planting the idea that anything but the "criminal" way was actually an impure version. "And he has chosen not to leave these people behind. He does not want a village where some of the people prey upon the rest of them. This causes disunity and dilutes the strength of the people - and Megatron is always for his followers being strong. Therefore, he has devised a plan where those who don't want to have such active engagement with law enforcement will still have places in his religion - and, as long as they are loyal followers, shall have his blessings."

"For example," Navigator said, "those who grow the crops he has sanctioned will find that they are free of the tyranny of nature's whims. Imagine having it rain on a schedule not stretching over months, but over days. Insects and animals will stay away from all of your plantings. Your food crops will never fail as long as you keep your end of this deal."

"Those who have no qualms in 'handling' the meddlers who call themselves law enforcement, on the other hand, won't be expected to stay home and plant things. Instead, you'll be the delivery force that turns those extra plants into money. And, in this way, everyone in the village will be enriched and strengthened. Once everything is set up, it will be the village with the oil wells that is the poorer one...and the weaker one."

With that, Navigator went on to describe how the current village would be under Megatron: Rich, emboldened, and strong. He made this part of his sermon extra flowery, and soon, the majority of those who had come to hear him were at least very interested if not yet convinced. At the close, Navigator told them all a prayer of conversion to use if they decided to come aboard. They would eventually be expected to do this publicly in a ceremony, but for now, silent prayers would be heard as well. "Megatron knows that it can be strategic to keep one's affiliation secret at times," Navigator said, "but he also believes that a Decepticon-in-Spirit must become strong enough to be able to stand up and say what he is. Therefore, he decrees that new Megatronists must take the oath of loyalty in public within two months of first conversion, lest he retract his blessings from them."

A few were convinced enough to go ahead and switch their loyalty: Several members of Elkon's group silently said prayers of conversion, as well as an old farmer whose current crop was failing and who feared having to either beg or starve. For now, though, there were no public converts. Even the secret ones wanted to see if the blessings really happened before they went "on the record."

[Vallermoore]

All but a handful of people in the town were convinced at the least to give the Decepticon ways a chance, even though they were not willing to become open Megatronists quite yet. Small groups of them, mostly those who had always been up to no good, set out to deal with the three sheriffs in town, the mayor, the local priestess of Inanna, the main Goddess of this world, and a couple of others who they knew would object to the new ways of doing things and try and get others to stop it. They were quickly and quietly killed, without torture or rape. The mayor and sheriffs had made themselves deeply unpopular anyway with their high taxes and corruption and few minded them vanishing, although the priestess of Inanna had genuinely tried to be nice and do the right thing in general, helping the sick and the poor. All the same, she had to go, or she would have turned informer for sure. Navigator and Loyal Star didn't even have to order the murders and were pleasantly surprised when they were privately informed of the news. Although there were no open Megatronists here yet, clearly many shared his dislike of law enforcement. The dead sheriffs were impersonated so that noone from outside would know anything was different.

Loyal Star and Navigator became de facto mayors, handing out the needed seeds, giving helpful advice, and now and then giving pointers on true Megatronism. Loyal Star was happy when a little child asked him about such things, as it brought memories into his mind boards of when he was a little foal without a cutie mark, asking the then local Ponyist priest about Ponyism. How things had changed. Now he was the finest life form in the universe, worshipping the finest God of the universe.

Rather then take advantage of no law enforcement to turn on each other the villagers and the criminal element within them co--operated. Within a couple of months the new opium poppies would grow tall and strong, and it was at that time that they had the first few public conversions including the man who got new teeth. Some were worried that they would not be able to celebrate the Feast of Inanna, their equivalent of Christmas, a time of feasting, game playing, and present giving. Realising this could be a problem, Loyal Star quickly came up with a solution. "Leave the Feast intact, but just rename it the Feast of Megatron. Megatron would not mind you enjoying yourselves. On Cybertron, the immigrant communities and a few of the native-built Decepticons have something like it-the one time of the year when Decepticons will give gifts to each other without it being a connive."

With this solved, all was going well and a few of the villagers presented Loyal Star and Navigator with gifts and food. Loyal Star happily feasted with them; as this was a feast of Megatron it could hardly be considered heresy. There were a couple of deaths from natural causes-Loyal Star and Navigator said Megatronist rites over the graves. Then someone asked about their planned wedding and if that existed in Megatronism. Loyal Star let Navigator settle that question. Finally all was ready and the harvest of now-dried opium was sold in the next town and soon started to stupefy most of the people in that town, leaving it ready for a raid.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Both Loyal Star and Navigator were surprised at how quickly the potential anti-Megatronists turned up dead. The murders were swift and silent, with throat slitting being the most favored method. Secretly, Navigator posted some cameras to try to find out who was the most lethal assassin. He wanted to be sure that it was actually someone in favor of Megatronism rather than a person who might have other motives. "This is the only thing I don't like about foreign assignments," he confided to Loyal Star later. "There's no DomIntel data. Sometimes that makes me feel like I'm half blind. If this was Cybertron, we'd know exactly who it is that removed the potential threats."

"One thing's for sure," he went on, "whoever our secret elf is, it's someone who is trusted by some of the most un-Decepticon elements of this town. That's how he can get close enough to them to cut their throats before they even know what's going on. And a person like that will probably be very friendly to us and everyone else, too. We need to make sure he or she is really on our side. It may be a legitimate convert, but it also may not, and it's always good to know exactly where you stand."

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

When the opium poppies came into bloom, entire areas outside of the town were ablaze with color. The only parts that weren't stunningly beautiful either contained houses and roads or were being used to grow food. When Loyal Star let out some oohs and aahs, Navigator looked concerned. Loyal Star immediately worried that he'd done something wrong, but was quickly reassured that it wasn't him in particular that was the problem. Instead, Navigator was worried that the few who came through town from the rutted, dusty connecting roads would go back to their own towns and blab all about the "beautiful flower fields."

Fortunately, no unwanted attention came to the town despite the occasional amazed visitor, but there were a few tense weeks while the people waited for the plants to go to seed. Eventually, the bright petals dropped off of the flowers, leaving the swollen seed pods that were full of opiate resin. Navigator had no trouble teaching the people how to extract it.

At this stage, the few who tried using some of the resin thought that maybe Navigator and Loyal Star were some sort of crazy. It didn't seem to do much at all, let alone be worth paying for! Navigator instructed Loyal Star to keep the knowledge of the proper processing and use of the stuff secret. "If they think it's a lot of nothing, it'll keep them from trying and getting addicted to the actual final product," he said. "I will also ask Megatron to bless these followers with an anti-addiction effect just in case they decide to try the final product at distribution time."

While the resin was being extracted, Navigator and Loyal Star quickly built a shed out of logs. It looked quite in keeping with the rest of the architecture, but since it was log construction instead of boards, it was very secure. It was finished off with a thick wooden door.

After the extracting was done, the resin was delivered to this shed. There, Navigator and Loyal Star went through the procedures to turn the relatively weak raw opium into powerful heroin and other derivatives. Since their bodies were actually robotic, they were able to work with the drugs without becoming the slightest bit intoxicated, let alone addicted. Now, it was time to get the distribution going.

The next day, in the mid afternoon, they returned to the door where they had been so rudely shut down a few months ago. This time, Navigator said the right thing: "Orangelos."

~~~~~~~~~

Soon, the door was opened and the two found themselves talking to the mysterious Elkon. As was typical for this area, Elkon - being a locally-successful crime boss - was a rather large man wearing robes made of fancy materials. He was surprised when he saw who had come to pay him a visit and wondered how they had managed to get his password. Navigator's lips were sealed about the last part, but despite this, Elkon led them into his office. It was made of thick woods brought in from somewhere else, but the finish on the woodwork indicated local craftsmanship. Dark stains made from the sap of a regional plant were used, and the wood itself was fairly rough hewn, though it had been sanded enough that it was obvious that some extra effort had been put in.

After about an hour, the two left the house. They were carrying what looked like the type of gifts that were commonly given to special visitors here: Some homemade bread, a jar full of brew, and some homemade sweets. To anyone looking on, there would be no evidence that it hadn't been a strictly social visit. Of course, it no longer mattered what onlookers thought since the police had been eliminated, but old habits died hard and old cautions died even harder.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Those who delivered the heroin into the oil town were even more baffled when they saw that their free samples quickly drew repeat customers. They had tried the stuff on the way over, and it had done nothing for them at all! To the sellers, the stuff might as well have been sawdust or sand. Yet to the customers, it was immediately the town's hottest commodity. Before their eyes, the oil town's 3,000 well-off people became drugged-out "zombies" who were willing to pay hundreds of nuggets just for one day's worth of the stuff. The customers had never experienced anything like the wonderful feelings initially produced by this drug, and its use spread like gasoline-aided wildfire. Before long, huge amounts of cash were flowing from this town to the one that produced the heroin, and soon, Navigator began projects that improved his area's infrastructure.

This situation was allowed to go on until the drug mules began to report that the targeted town was starting to have trouble keeping its wells in good working order. Its now-rampant drug problem kept the maintenance workers from doing their jobs well or caring about their slipping performance. Soon, there would be enough of a drop in oil production that it could be noticed in the capital, and if that happened, the government would send agents to find out what was going on.

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

First Unterran Temple of Megatron
Wednesday Sermon and Worship

When the people arrived for this week's service, they found something unexpected. There was a large cover along the back wall, and only the now-carved Face of Megatron could be seen. Navigator himself looked different today, with tighter-fitting clothes and an air of military precision.

"For the last six months," Navigator began his speech, "we have enjoyed the free flow of money from the once-wealthy town up the road. We have a new water well, graveled main streets, and everyone has enjoyed having the money needed to repair old problems with their homes and equipment. We have also enjoyed twice-weekly rains and the accompanying bumper food crops."

"However, just like living beings, all plans have stages. And the stage where we sit back and enjoy trading plants for huge amounts of money is over. The oil wells have begun to fall into disrepair, and now, nobody cares about them. They're all too busy using our drugs to give a darn."

"If this is allowed to go on, the Crown will send agents to that town to investigate the drop in production. We must make our next move now. This week is the week that we march in and seize the entire area!" Navigator stepped slightly to the side and gestured toward the back wall. Loyal Star, on cue, pulled the covering aside - revealing hundreds of bows and a huge box of arrows.

"When we march in, some of the people will realize what's happening despite their intoxicated states. This will be a hostile takeover. We will be armed with these bows and arrows, and should have no trouble dispatching most of the resistance. A few of the targets have guns, but if we strike without warning, we should be able to eliminate them before they can do much damage. We will be using bows because it would have raised too much suspicion to import an armory's worth of guns for ourselves. The same went for buying enough gunmetal to forge our own firearms in great numbers. Bows, on the other hand, were easy to make from the trees that grow right here. The same is true of the arrows."

"As we all know thanks to my sermons over the last several months, our Divine Leader is glad to improve the battle chances of his loyal followers. I now ask his blessing on these bows and the arrows that go with them, that they may easily find their marks even if aimed slightly off. For the duration of this conflict, I ask the same for any guns our people already have."

At that, the lights in the Temple went dim, and a glow came over the weaponry at the wall. A few of the people's chests or pockets also glowed. While these weapons would still miss if aimed in an entirely wrong direction, "close enough" would now get the job done just as well as "dead on." The lethality of the arrows was also improved.

Navigator waited for the psychological effect of this scene to have its full effect, and then continued speaking. "Once we gain control of the town and its wells, we'll have to deal with the remaining junkies the place is now full of. Fortunately, this will not be as hard as it seems. The Decepticons have a piece of technology known as a 'body control chip.' I have requisitioned a large number of these, and Megatron willing, they will be delivered to us via teleportation once we have control of the area. We will then chip those who are too intoxicated to resist. It is likely that most of the town will be leaning against walls and very much out of it; the Divine Leader will have blessed their heroin supply with extra potency right about the time we arrive, and drug users always rush to shoot up the moment something negative happens. It should be a simple matter to literally own them all once the effects kick in..."

"Before I adjourn this very special service, I must address two things. The first is a reminder that it is not the riches of the oil town that makes it our target; it was their refusal to sell their oil to this town at fair prices and under reasonable terms. In short, it's because they lorded their resources over us."

"Second, many of you have wondered why their town became so addicted to our product while we have not been affected by it at all. The answer is simple: Megatron has blessed the entire refined heroin distribution chain with immunity to addiction. With drugs like this, once someone feels the effects of the drug, that person becomes psychologically addicted even if the physical addiction is blocked. Therefore, our Divine Leader made it so that to us, heroin is an inert substance that does nothing. Non-followers, on the other hand, have no such protection."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, the area was all but a ghost town. Most of the men, along with the stronger of the women, were on the march. They would camp out 3/4 of the way to their destination so that they would be well-rested when the battle began. Then, at the break of dawn, when it was barely light enough to see where to shoot their arrows, they would start the takeover. If all went well, they would soon be in control of a few good oil wells and two or three thousand newly-chipped slaves.

[Vallermoore]

"Whoever he or she is who carried out those murders, the person is most likely linked to Elkon, the ruling gang boss in this area. Whilst he seems friendly enough, I'd keep an eye on him as he might be waiting to kill us both and seize power. I hope that is not the case, but it's possible."

Time went buy and the opium poppies grew ready for harvesting. Because of Megatron's blessing, his followers were immune even if they had not publically and formally sworn loyalty to him yet. Nearly everyone in the oil town, a town far richer and larger then theirs, started to become addicted to the drug, and willing to pay huge amounts for it, which filled the village's treasury with some left over. There was a new water well built, new roads, everyone had at least a slightly better standard of living, and as their standard of living rose, so did their belief in Megatronism and the Decepticon Way, and their liking for His priests who had brought this about. Navigator soon realized that there was a problem. With most people in the targeted town too drugged to do their jobs properly, there was a danger of central government or even the king finding out what was happening and sending in soldiers.

After Navigator announced his plan to seize the oil town for the booty and the glory of Megatron, the people were very excited and took up the bows and arrows and things like knives, sticks and farming tools for any hand to hand combat. The farmers had a few shotguns, and the organized crime group within the town had a few pistols and revolvers. Whist the town had about twenty police and a few factory guards, most of them were stoned. When the Megatronists made their attack, not many of their foes could fight properly and in only a couple of hours the whole town had been taken. It was easy to tie everyone up for now until the chips arrived, which soon enough they did, and then they could chip everyone, except the babies. Few felt it right to chip tiny babies and made that clear. Nine Megatronists had fallen in battle, and would be buried in the village's graveyard, with Loyal Star conducting their funeral services.

"As loyal Megatronists who fell in battle for the Way, when it was not their fault, there is no chance they will end up in the Realm of Punishment. The human equivalent of the Realm of Endless Energon awaits them," Loyal Star said.

With the oil town taken, they now had a lot of loot. Navigator and Loyal Star took a tenth for the Temple, a de facto Raid Tax, the small organized crime group of fifteen or so took a tenth, and the rest was shared out amongst the others. Many were now wealthy beyond their wildest dreams, and Loyal Star told them it was nearly time for a public conversion to Megatronism. He assured them that their past belief in other goddesses or gods they had before they even heard of Megatronism would not automatically doom them to the Realm of Punishment. "I, before becoming a Megatronist, once worshipped a trio of sapient pony princesses! For fifty years! And when I someday pass on to the afterlife, it will not be held against me. Megatronism could never grow if people were too scared to convert for fear of their past religious belief in other divine beings sending them straight to the Punishment Realm after death! Those who deconvert, on the other hand, will not be forgiven, and the Realm of Punishment is not a place you want your soul to end up in."

The dead foes were put on a large pyre and burned like rubbish to get them out of the way.

[Victorious Decepticons]

After the town was taken over, Navigator expected a warp to open and a package of enslavement chips to be left on his side. Instead, he got a radio message from the First Temple on Cybertron ordering him to get everyone tied up and then have his fighters assemble in the center of the town.

Since nobody would be keeping eye on the prisoners if they just tied them up, they marched the still-wasted captives to the town center along with them. "There is sure to be a big event," Navigator told them all. "An order like this means that there's going to be something big to see!" Everyone, including Loyal Star, stood around in a circle with anticipation.

Only moments later, Navigator's prediction came true in a big way. Divine Leader Megatron himself appeared in person with a bang of air displacement. The humans, who had only heard of him but had never seen him, were first amazed by his massive size and then by his construction. He really was a giant robot, and clearly not made by anyone on Planet Holtz! The crowd gasped in awe and wonder, and in the case of the captives, in fear.

"You have pleased me well," Megatron addressed the victorious group. "I am always honored when territory is taken in my name, and when my religion is spread. When it is spread by the weapons of the loyal, it is even better, for it shows the strength and glory of my Way."

"As your reward in this realm, you have already gained plenty of money, which you intelligently used to improve your quality of living. Now, you have control of 5 oil wells, which alone would produce enough money to keep any of you from having to do much in the line of work. Soon, you will also have 3,000 slaves. Each one of you is to start out with one slave as your private property. The others will belong to my Temple, and they will be assigned with doing the work required to keep everything here in great shape. Some of them will also be pressed into service as security; they shall be the front line and cannon fodder for any military defense you have to do to keep this town."

"This, however, is just the start. I will be sending engineers from my company, Megatron Energon, to this place. They will replace these oil rigs with ones of Decepticon design. Decepticon rigs can produce up to 100 times what these do until the oil runs dry. However, you won't be running them at full speed yet. The pipeline system of this part of Unterra can't handle that level of volume. Still, you'll be able to sell oil to this nation's government at the maximum volume the system can transport."

"Such an increase in production is going to raise eyebrows. However, people have an amazing tendency to not look too hard at things they consider to be good. Simply bribe whatever inspectors show up so they don't say anything about the new equipment. Just tell them you don't want any hassles about whether or not the equipment is approved. They'll be glad to take your 1,000-nugget 'tip,' especially since that way, they get to just say that nothing is amiss and not actually have to conduct an investigation way out here in the sticks."

"Now, you are probably wondering how you'll control your captives, and what good they'll be when all they can think about is the heroin that you're no longer delivering! Fortunately, we have been in the beast-taming business for centuries, so neither of these things will be a problem. Line up your new slaves."

With Navigator and Loyal Star helping, the victorious fighters managed to get all of the captives standing and lined up. The captives swayed a little and looked disinterested in anything. Once they were in position, Megatron called the two priests over and dropped a chip gun down to each of them. Next, he dropped two large bags of control chips. The two immediately moved behind the line, loading their guns as they did so, and got ready to apply the chips into the tops of the captives' necks.

"Once these chips are in place," Megatron explained to the humans, "the slaves will have to obey every order their owners give them without question or hesitation. That is great as long as you care for them properly. If you do not, they will crash. Also, I am taking an unusual step: To prevent the explosive growth of the slave population - a problem that has caused many empires trouble - I am putting a divine limit on their reproductive capabilities. They will only produce enough offspring to sustain their population, and no more."

"Next is their heroin addictions. These made things very easy for you during the conflict, but now, you need them to work. Therefore, once they are all chipped and firmly under control, I am going to sober them up. I will also grant them one mercy, and that is a blessing that will prevent withdrawal symptoms. They have already lost their town, their oil, and their freedom. They do not need to be further punished with the hell of sudden withdrawal."

"Now, I have some directives for you, my first loyal followers on this otherwise godforsaken planet." Everyone listened eagerly. Even the captives, or at least those sober enough to listen, wanted to know what was to come.

"First, there is the matter of the babies and young children of the captives. They are to be adopted by the Temple, and raised entirely in my Way. You shall not discriminate against them as long as they accept the Decepticon Way, but if they turn against it at some point, you shall enslave them and put them to work with the others. The age cutoff for this shall be just 4 years old. Anyone over that shall be enslaved. This is because even by the age of 5, children learn the basics of the system they have previously experienced and internalize them. We must not have little counterrevolutionary sleeper agents just waiting to get old enough to cause problems!"

"Young slaves are not to be put right to work. Instead, they are to be taught how to do the work that awaits them once they're older. They shall be drilled on it over and over, with age-appropriate levels of physical difficulty, so they are extremely good workers by the time they are of age. We have found that the age of 15 is old enough to start with heavy labor, though in situations like this, 12 is old enough for light work like washing windows and mopping floors."

"The next directive is simpler: Build a new Temple here. Every Megatronist town must have one. I want this Temple to be made by the labor of the new Temple slaves, except for the parts that require highly-skilled craftsmanship. It is fitting and pleasing for those conquered by Megatronists to be made to help strengthen my religion. This is not only pleasing to me, but to all right-thinking Megatronists."

"This temple needs to be larger than the other one. It needs to be able to house all of the babies and young children that will be raised there, along with those who will serve as their caregivers and trainers. Another wing of this temple needs to provide medical services; with this many humans, some are bound to need a doctor. The rest of the building shall be dedicated to Temple services and back-end administration. The priests' housing should go in a separate building on the property."

"Finally, other Temple slaves are to improve the road between these two towns. Passage between the two should be easy and fast. That way, if either one is threatened, backup troops can easily swarm over from the other one to help. Trade, of course, will also be much easier with a good road. For now, use pounded gravel, for it is readily available. Once our strength improves even more, I shall share with you the recipe for good asphalt, which you can easily make from the extra crude oil our wells can pump up."

After saying a few flowery closing words, Megatron disappeared. The two priests immediately set to work chipping all 3,000 adults, as well as the grade-school-aged kids that were now seized and brought forth. As soon as everyone was chipped, a bright flash came from the sky, and the new slaves were instantly sobered.

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

Later, back at the First Temple of Unterra

Navigator called Loyal Star into his room with a serious look on his face.

"Our work here is almost complete," Navigator said once the door was tightly closed and the window shade was drawn. "We have enough loyal Megatronists now to be fairly certain that the religion will be spread, regardless of anything else. However, Leader Megatron does not want to wait for a slow spread and risk the chance of our budding followers being shut down by violent government blowback. Once we finish up with some important infrastructure improvements, we will be redeployed. Other priests from Cybertron will visit on occasion to provide further strategic advise and to ensure that heresy does not creep in as the religion spreads from region to region. There are also now enough Megatronists, in a concentrated enough area, that Decepticon military support is possible if the federal government attempts to interfere."

Navigator showed three sets of papers, each one with a picture of a planet on the front. "I rendered these from data that was sent over my radio," he explained. "We have a choice of our next destination, though it must be one of these three. Here's a bit about each one:

- A very primitive planet that does not even have true nations yet. Its inhabitants are anthropomorphic dogs and naturally follow an alpha leader, though their sapience is causing them to seek other ways of determining the alpha besides tooth-and-claw fighting. They have no qualms in attacking other tribes and slaughtering everyone, though this does not result in lopsided victories because all of the other tribes think the same way. Battles often result in extreme numbers of casualties for both sides. Each tribe tends to follow its own local god, though there are a few who share deities. The environment is decently good for android undercover bodies, with dryness at the surface but moisture just below.

- A very advanced pony planet. Once under Celestia's influence, it gave up Harmonism after the death of its goddesses. However, it despises Megatron and Megatronism since it blames them for the loss of the goddesses they knew and loved. It is likely that initial inroads into this planet's culture will have to be made by ruthless brute force, followed by the taking of all of the young foals and indoctrinating them into the Decepticon Way while simultaneously preventing them from learning any unauthorized information about Harmonism/Ponyism. There is just one village on the planet that's remote enough to get this started. This planet is fairly wet and has plenty of cultivated apple trees as well as highly productive hay fields.

- A somewhat Earthlike planet that is home to three sapient species: Humans, ponies, and nekos. The nekos are decidedly worse off than the others, and are kept as menial workers at best. They are often sold into sex slavery. These beings are the most likely to be interested in converting due to deep dissatisfaction with the status quo. Technologically speaking, the planet is decently advanced, with very good interconnectivity between its cities, towns, and villages. It is likely that initial converts among the humans and ponies will come from its internet rather than from live interaction; while the nekos, too poor for widespread computer ownership, would have to be reached by going to their gathering places. The environment here is outright covered up by cement in the cities and towns. In villages, it depends on the location of the settlement.

"Which one do you want to go to next?" Navigator asked. He didn't say so outright, but Loyal Star's strategic sense (or lack of it) would be up for judgment.

[Vallermoore]

When Leader Megatron himself showed up, those Megatronists who privately were wondering if He really existed now had no doubts at all. Everybody there was awed by the to them giant Decepticon. Loyal Star felt proud that he had done so well that it was worthy of Megatron's attention. Surely he was one step closer to the priesthood now? The noise when Megatron appeared was like a clap of thunder, which was just as well as the entire region heard it. Soon enough after Megatron had spoken Loyal Star and Navigator began chipping the new slaves. Fortunately for Loyal Star, those who made this body had not forgotten to install Empathy Down into it, and for now at least Loyal Star turned his empathy down to 10%. Megatron decided to cure the new slaves of the heroin. It was bad enough being a slave and no longer in control of one's own body, without constantly wanting to throw up as well. This was not the Realm of Punishment after all, and the slaves had never seen a Decepticon until now let alone fought them. Everyone was relieved that they didn't have to chip babies and very young children. Even most Decepticons, not counting the Genocide Battalion, had no hatred of biologicals of that age, and many remembered their own newly-built bots. Bots who had only been activated for a few days were like toddlers as MasterBlaster had found out.

Not all the little ones would in fact get chipped-those who grew up as little Megatronists and took the Decepticon Way to heart would stay free, whilst those who didn't would be chipped aged four. That was a nice compromise between security and not wanting to enslave babies and toddlers.

Within a few years, most of the region would be Megatronist, and when the king at last found out about it and sent in the royal army, a few squadrons of Decepticons would come to the aid of the Megatronists and topple him. Within a century, the entire planet would be strongly Megatronist.

*****
Later Navigator came with the news it was time to go to a new planet. In this case, the planet that Loyal Star chose was an Earth-sized moon of a great red gas giant and was inhabited by sapient ponies. "Will we be visiting this planet in sapient pony bodies or full sized Decepticon ones?" he asked, remembering the day when he had been excommunicated from the Harmonist Church. Forcing Megatronism on these ponies would be a sort of payback.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"We will be returning to Cybertron to discuss strategy," Navigator said. "As I recall, this is the time of year when zombification sweeps the universe. That shall surely affect how we go about things. For instance, it would usually be the procedure for us to stay on Cybertron for a while and reimmerse ourselves in proper Decepticon culture, but I'm thinking that we may be told to go back out right away. I will have to radio back with which planet you chose and see if there are any special instructions."

Soon enough, he found that there were, indeed special instructions. They were to go to Cybertron first and return to their normal bodies, but after that, they were to go right back out again - but not to their next missionary destination. Further information would come when they were on Cybertron in person.

Navigator and Loyal Star soon left after making one of the locals the acting priest. It was a man who had been Elkon's second-in-command until seeing that Megatron did, indeed, have far grander ambitions than selling a few counterfeit diamonds. He had then switched his loyalty to the Temple and had proven to be an excellent strategist and coordinator.

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

Cybertron

The Metal Planet looked glorious to the two incoming robots. Navigator was especially happy to be home. Even though he loved traveling, organic worlds would always strike him as extra-foreign thanks to the fact that he was a Cybertronian native. The streets of the town hadn't even been paved~! Having to walk across the weird, soft surface and act like that was normal had been slowly grinding on his "nerves." He was very glad to land with a solid clunk, certain that the ground would not give way under him. Its unyielding, stable, thick metal was as comforting to him as a field of soft grass and flowers was to a human.

Still, he did not have time to revel in being home for too long. They had told him that he and Loyal Star would have to leave again right away. Quickly, they made their way not to the Temple, but to ForIntel Headquarters. There, they mind-transferred back to their original bodies.

"You have done well," a top agent said. "Leader Megatron is pleased about how both of you were able to spread the Decepticon Way to Unterra without diluting it. I would say more, but there is no time to talk. The Zombie Event is about to sweep the universe, and if you two are to bring Megatronism to the pony planet, it must be done by force. Timing your arrival for the Event will be crucial if you are to succeed without the need for a full-scale military action. Leader Megatron has said that this will be difficult even then, but doable - and, he says, it will be most glorious for the religion and for the Decepticon Race if we can seize that planet with only two people."

"Our Division has assessed this planet and have come to the conclusion that it will take the Cure response to the Event. This will keep natural infections to a minimum. Therefore, we and the Decepticon Military believe that it is best to cause a massive quantity of UNnatural infections. This should be done using Zombification microbes that are not from this year's zombie explosion, but from that of several years ago - old enough that they have stopped producing vaccines or antibiotics against them due to having switched to more recent versions."

The agent paused and took on a more official look. Orders were surely coming.

"First, we will upgrade your bodies to carry two crop-dusting sprayers, one in each leg. This will take only an hour; we have our mechanics waiting in the next room. Once outfitted, you are to go to Megatron Metals Mine #1. There, Overseer has prepared six large canisters of his private supply of the Zombification Element for Biologicals. You will each fill your sprayers with it - it'll take two canisters for each of you. Then, you'll each take another canister as reserve stock."

"As part of this upgrade, we will also provide you with a large canister each of the Decepticon Loyalty Virus. It causes exactly what its name implies. You will mix this with the Zombification Element."

"The Zombification Element is effective, but it was developed for use on captives. This means that its speed of effect isn't as fast as it could be. It also isn't all that virulent - if someone isn't directly exposed, they are unlikely to catch it. That, however, is not true of the Decepticon Loyalty Virus. The DLV was developed for the Decepticon Military, and is genetically engineered to be extremely fast-acting and extremely contagious."

Navigator listened closely to all of this. After the last line, the agent paused, and Navigator's eyes lit up. He was onto what the agency had in mind, and it was a good tactic indeed.

"So, when the uninfected go over to the ones who catch our zombie factor, they end up catching Decepticon Loyalty off of them," he said, just to be sure.

"Precisely." The agent confirmed, shifting his gaze from one priest to the other. He looked at Loyal Star now, who was unlikely to be aware of the Military's not-so-well-known developments or how they were meant to be used. "Note that the DLV does not spread Megatronism. Instead, it causes loyalty to the Nation, and in those who aren't fully infected, to the general principles of the Decepticon Way. It also makes them hostile to those who do not share these traits. Finally, they will be very likely to obey any orders from Decepticons."

"You will not spread this to your target town. Instead, you will be chemtrailing the cities that are most likely to interfere with that village and those around it. First, you'll fly over the capital, and after that, you will need to fly in low over the base that houses their military command. This base is fully equipped with SAMs and even laser cannons, as well as a huge concentration of troops. There are about 100,000 troops on the grounds of this giant complex. However, your task will be made much easier by the natural zombie factor, which will start randomly affecting people. We also expect the planet to experience Natural-Supernatural Zombie Factor. This odd-sounding name refers to the fact that it will appear on its own - Natural - and to its effects. It is the Factor that raises the dead. There is a military cemetery right on the grounds of their main base, so they'll have to deal with that, and that's when you show up and spray down the living."

"This will prevent them from being able to mount any sort of offensive against you for several years to come. The main reason for that is simple: The natural zombie virus always fades after only about 36 hours. Overseer's version, on the other hand, never wears off. Our latest Loyalty Virus version is also much more long lasting, and for many years, it will pop up randomly in their population like colds do in humans. They will therefore have chaos until they actually figure out how to defeat it."

The agent now showed a holographic map of the planet-sized moon. At first, it seemed entirely futuristic and covered with cities. Zooming in, however, revealed one tiny village nestled in a slight valley surrounded entirely by tall, peaked, rock mountains. It was clear that getting there without flying would be all but impossible even with the advancement of the rest of its world.

"Here is your actual target. After releasing your disease agents, you will land here in your full Decepticon bodies and take it by storm. The first part is easy; capture and chip up all of the adults and any children old enough to have opinions. But you won't use the usual chips - you'll use these. These are special nonsapient AI chips. Once installed, they will force the captives to talk and act exactly like proper Megatronist Decepticons-in-Spirit. This, in turn, will force them to model pious Megatronist behavior to any foals, who will grow up thinking that this is what those around them actually believe. Within one or two new generations, this will change that town from being Harmonist into being Megatronist."

"Of course, the non-chipped ponies, who have been raised as Megatronists, will eventually get old enough to need some evidence of the superiority of our Divine Leader. We will devise a way to provide that evidence when the time comes. For now, you have to concentrate on gaining your initial foothold."

"Are there any questions?"

[Edited silly spelling error]

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron, Decepticon Headquarters

In his office, General Soundwave had an important message for the many Domintel base generals under him. "Last year, because it was so unexpected, over a thousand bots zombiefied, attacked the Main Refinery and a foundry and caused utter chaos. Now any zombie robots -apart from Overseer who is a special case-are to be treated as traitors and deactivated on sight by the wielding of their limbs and then melting them down in a foundry. Fighting them in the normal way doesn't work. Neither Leader Megatron nor I want any more zombie risings on Cybertron itself-or worse, traitor bots raising their own armies of zombies and trying to take over Cybertron."

Cybertron

As they approached the Metal Planet on board a cloaked Forintel FNG, Loyal Star and Navigator had the same feelings that MasterBlaster often had as the *big ball bearing* came closer and closer. To non-Decepticons it was probably the most dangerous place in the universe outside the pull of a black hole, but to them, it was their home, and the firm unmoving metal underfoot would feel like a forest glade would feel to the feet of a human or the hooves of a sapient pony or a changeling. Being a native-built, Navigator felt that effect even more. Soon enough they were on the Metal Planet and back in their normal bodies, where they were congratulated for their success. If Decepticons had tails, Loyal Star's would have been twitching and waving around. As it was his eyes glowed happily. Soon enough the mechanics would upgrade them for free as this was a formal mission of the Temple, and they headed out to Decepticon Earth. Navigator could tell that Loyal Star needed his Bravery Up to go near Overseer and he said "As we are on a formal mission as an Assistant Priest of Megatron, Overseer is not allowed to try to kill or enslave you or me at the moment, as to interfere in such a way with Temple business of this magnitude would be considered treason. And he would not want to be melted down and most likely sent to the Realm of Punishment for blasphemous treason."

All the same, Loyal Star was fully alert when they saw the incredibly dangerous overseer at the entrance to his mine. Overseer smiled when the two Priests of Megatron transformed in front of him. "Ah, Loyal Star. Whatever that classified act of bravery was that you did, it must have been big to gain not one but two Gold Stripes. Clearly your name was well chosen. Here is what you need. Good luck." Soon enough they were out of there and went into FTL speed to reach their target in time. When they came out of it there was a huge red planet with multiple moons, the planet Jove, but it was a large Earth-sized moon which it's inhabitants just named simply Moon that they went to.

Moon

Moon was a planet where the dominant lifeform was sapient ponies and until the destruction of Equestria they had been strongly Harmonist, each major city having it's Harmonist church. Whilst Harmonism existed only in cult form now, the ponies had a deep hatred of Harmonism and all that it stood for. Under normal circumstances, pony warplanes and missiles would have been launched at the two Decepticons, but the military base where they went near was next to a large military cemetery containing the graves of thousands of earth ponies and unicorns (pegasui were normally cremated after death to return their spirits to the open sky.) And the dead had risen, clawed or teleported their way out of their graves and were now randomly attacking everypony in sight, distracting the police and military. Loyal Star and Navigator were able to spray everyone in sight, creating a thick belt of Decepticon loyalists who were infectious. Whilst given enough time, the area could be quarantined and sealed off, it would take at least ten years to find a cure.

They then closed in on the little village of Stonebridge, which other then a couple of armed police and a single farmer with a shotgun had no way of fighting back against two huge Decepticons. As they transformed one police pony did fire a few bullets into Loyal Star's ankle, which got him stomped on. Loyal Star threw down a slave cage and said in perfect Equish "Surrender and you will live. Because of the zombie event, no help can come to you." Most of the terrified ponies surrendered quickly and the rest did after Loyal Star threatened to raze the village to the ground. "I was a pony like you once and a Harmonist Priest until I saw who was the True God. Sadly you will have to be forced to see things my way. He unlocked the packed cage and expertly pulled out and chipped stallions and mares. When he had chipped nearly all of them one, a hidden changeling, turned into a large hedgehog and spiked his hand, scratching his paint. It also felt for his love but luckily could not find it. He had to use his internal tweezers to get the ling and chip it.

"These chips are unusual in that rather then being outright slave chips, they will force you to act as Megatronists even if you really don't want to, and to teach Megatronism to your foals that are too young to chip and unborn foals that I can't reach to chip.. Ling, fly away to somewhere where your cover has not been blown. You are sort of Decepticonish anyway, and you will be a good love collector for your hive now. The rest of you are to make a new Temple to Megatron and we will show you how to make it since you have never seen one before. The former Harmonist Priest here will now be a Megatronian Acolyte, the highest rank in Megatronism that a biological can reach. To get any higher you need a body like mine."

"So are we slaves now or involuntary Megatronists? And what happens when we die and pass on to the afterlife? " asked one of the braver ponies.


It turned out that they had more work to do on Moon.

(OOC-this rp bit was a bit longer but part of it was eaten by my computer.)

[Victorious Decepticons]

"Hold it!" Navigator's order to the now-eagle-shaped, flying changeling cut through the air. Thanks to the chip, it had to obey. It turned into a hummingbird so that it could literally maintain its position. "Get back here, I have better plans for YOU!" The lead priest ordered, and soon enough, the changeling was back standing with the crowd of others.

"Now," Navigator said to the rest, "you wondered if you were now involuntary Megatronists or slaves. The answer is that you are both. You will learn Megatronism, worship at the Temple, and live completely according to the Decepticon Way under Temple command. However, this isn't all you will do. You will also obey our orders, and this aspect makes you slaves - unless, of course, you would have obeyed them even without our chips."

"As for where you will go in the afterlife, that depends on whether or not you decide to truly convert to Megatronism. If you do not, the best you can hope for is to be used for some kind of heavy labor in service to proper Megatronists - and if you continue to despise the Divine Leader, then the Realm of Punishment awaits. This is not because it is "morally bad" to despise him, but it is simply expected and logical that he will despise you back and act accordingly."

~~~~~~~~~

"I'm changing one other thing now, and that's that the old Harmonist priest doesn't get to be in charge of anything. Just by his prior association, he will be seen as an icon of the old religion and lend it strength, and we can't have that. Instead, we will lead the Temple services for several weeks and then I will assign others to further duties based on what we observe of each of you."

"For now, your first job is simple enough, at least for those who are strong enough to do la~~"

Navigator suddenly cut himself off and turned his head. Loyal Star and the others looked in the same direction to see what he was looking at. Almost immediately, fearful shrieks erupted from the chipped ponies, who would have stampeded away if it wasn't for their chips forcing them to stay where they had previously been ordered to stand. Loyal Star's eyes soon zoomed in on the problem: Zombified ponies were coming from the town's small cemetery!

As this happened, a couple of the chipped ponies suddenly growled strangely. Their eyes, now bloodshot, showed that they were affected by the non-supernatural zombie virus that was - at this time - naturally erupting on the planet. Fortunately, their chips kept them from being able to run around and cause chaos, though the did start trying to reach around and bite those near them.

Loyal Star didn't waste any time. He ordered everyone to stand far enough apart to avoid any attempts at violence from the infected. Meanwhile, Navigator grabbed more chips and started seizing the risen undead. He quickly chipped them all and had them join the main formation.

"This changes things a bit!" Navigator announced. "It looks like you won't have to do all of the work, at least as long as these dead carcasses are able to be up and about!"

Of course, many of the ponies were horrified. Some of the risen dead were the bodies of their loved ones, and often, they were still recognizable. Loyal Star, realizing that they were surely concerned about this, reassured them by reminding them that the spirits of their loved ones were still long gone. This helped a little, but it was still quite jarring for the non-zombified living.

Navigator moved the topic along. "As I stated, the first job is to build a temple. You who are both living and sapient will do the actual construction work. The mindless will provide basic labor: Gathering rocks for the walls and transporting them to the construction site. The site itself will be there." He pointed at the one area that was big enough to hold it and didn't already have some other building on it. Then, he pointed at the two fillies who looked the most concerned for their fellows. "You two, you watch the foals while the others are working. Here's a lullaby I want you to teach them."

"Right now, we are small
But someday, we will be tall
That's when we will conquer all
In the Name of Megatron, rah rah rah!"

The tune that went these words was calming and lullaby-like, but the words would, Navigator hoped, still get the first nuggets of the ideas of greatness, conquest, and the Divine Leader into the foals' heads right from the start. By the time they became school-aged, the basic concepts would be ingrained, at least if the plan went as intended. As time went on, Navigator would devise other simple things like this to start teaching foals Megatronism and the Decepticon Way from very young ages. Of course, the complexity of the concepts would increase along with the age of the youngster.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the Temple was being built, Navigator took Loyal Star aside. "We need to cut all communications to and from this village so that outsiders don't get the idea to climb up here and interfere, or worse, send paratroopers or pegusi against us. Since this place is so small, the outside world will surely think that its people have simply been lost to the Zombie Event when it goes silent." Navigator muttered, using Binary for even more security. "In fact, it might be a good idea to send one last, false, message from someone purporting to have 'just been infected and dying fast' and claiming outright that the others have already died."

"Now, about that changeling: That's an excellent asset for us. He can easily disguise himself, and this will allow him to take Decepticon Loyalty Virus into places we can't reach with these bodies. With a perfect disguise, he can infect someone and those around that person won't even know to suspect that their sudden change of heart is an infection."

"For now," Navigator said, suddenly speaking loudly, "we need to get ourselves somewhere to stay. And I say that we should create that place right now." He pointed at the side of one of the surrounding mountaintops. It appeared to be made of solid rock. "if we even lay down in this little place, we'll take up a lot of the space. Not only that, these people don't have the technology to build houses that are 120 feet tall and a few thousand feet wide. We, however, can vaporize enough rock out of that mountainside to do the job in just a few days. Of course, this will require a bit of a fuel miracle, so let us pray..."

Together, the two took a praying pose and asked Leader Megatron to up their efficiency by 1,000%. There was a long pause - much longer than usual, and very noticeable - and then an impressive flash came from the sky and surrounded each of them with a momentary glow. At ground level, the ponies couldn't help but be impressed.

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

Cybertron
Main Military Base

"Today, troops, we once again find ourselves ready to jump onto the positive side of the strange Zombie Event that rolls across the universe at this time of year!" Megatron was saying to the assemblage of ready soldiers at the Main Military Base. "Raiding, of course, is easy for us at any time of year thanks to my efforts. However, it is only NOW that the other nations are full of zombies. And for this raid, it is not oil, nor metal, nor fusible materials that we are going after. Today, our loot is the zombies themselves!"

"Zombies are excellent slave laborers when they are drawn from biological stock. The zombification rots the parts of their wetware that are capable of protest or planning, leaving only their brainstems relatively intact. All we need to do is jam a control chip into their spines, and we have slaves that will work at top speed until they literally fall to pieces. While we can and do control chip sapient slaves, it's far more efficient to do it with zombies. That's because with zombies, there are no strong intentional competing commands for the chips to override. The chips' entire power therefore goes to enacting the commands of the zombies' owners, and this allows significantly greater precision."

"We will have two main targets to start with: The planet that dares to call itself the Human Empire, and which has, as its national goal, human domination of the universe. Right now it is just one planet. When we're through with it, it will be one almost-barren planet. We will go there and chip up every zombie that we can find, and the cargo-bots will take them to our organic agricultural worlds in batches as we do this. Then we will burn the rest of 'the Human Empire,' leaving only a few - if any - survivors to appreciate the fact that it is we DECEPTICONS who shall have total domination of the universe!"

"Next door to that wretched dump, there is a small planet full of ponies, with the creatures all being part of a government that calls itself Apple Field. Yes, those smiling mealy-mouthed 'friendship' idiots. Even that government name shits rainbows. Like humans, the ponies seem to infest the universe. In any case, they are excellent miners, and many of the Empire's mines are starting to run low on them. It seems that the Cloning Center underestimated how long it takes to grow and raise the things. However, this will not be a problem once we raid the zombies off of this planet. The main thing to remember here is that we need to paste their Zombie Cure Research Center. We shall also spray their population centers down with Zombie Factor. Then, the Genocide Battalion will move in to make those who have been hit with the Factor into actual zombies."

Megatron looked over to General Carjack. "This won't be your usual scorched-planet genocide. Your Battalion needs to deactivate them in the least damaging way possible so that their reanimated corpses will be fit to toil for us. Before this announcement, you were all fitted with crop-dusting equipment. This will release a heavy, suffocating gas on whoever is below you. Be sure to use that whenever possible; it will leave the bodies completely intact. Soon after they fall, they should come back as zombified workers, which the rest of us will then collect."

After giving these details, Megatron finished with 10 minutes of rousing exhortations. Right afterwards, the Decepticon Military took to the skies.

Once Megatron was in the air, he attended to a prayer that had come in from his priests several minutes before. "A 1000% efficiency upgrade so they can make themselves a mountain house." He shook his head. Then, he delivered a blessing that would allow them to get it done even faster than that. Once that was done, he turned his attention to one of his favorite activities: Raiding.

[Vallermoore]

Moon



"Hold it! Get back here, I have better plans for YOU!"" Navigator's voice reached the changeling just in time and the chip brought it back. If he'd waited a bit longer the ling would have flown right out of earshot. Navigator told the ponies that they were in effect slaves-unless there were covert ponies who de facto followed the Decepticon Way anyway. He canceled Loyal Star's order, leaving Loyal Star inwardly worried if this would be a black mark on his record and impede his clerical career. He was then cut off by screams of fear from the ponies who would be stampeding if not for the chips. Dead, decomposed ponies, some of them little more then skin and bones, others green, swollen and stinking, were emerging from their graves, and looking for meat, something they had never eaten in life. Not wanting his new pony slaves zombiefied, Navigator quickly chipped the pony undead, that could put up no real resistance to a full sized Decepticon. "This changes things a bit! It looks like you won't have to do all of the work, at least as long as these dead carcasses are able to be up and about!" Several of the ponies were horrified as they knew who the corpses had once been.

"Don't worry. their souls have long since moved on to the afterlife, where the unlucky are in Pony Hell or enslaved by us in the former Pony Heaven, and the lucky have maybe avoided that fate. Soon enough the zombies were toiling too and from with cargos of stones, the living ponies were making a Temple to Megatron, a few crafts ponies were making the more ornate bits, and two fillies were looking after the little foals that were too young to know what had happened and singing a Megatronist lullaby to them.

"Right now, we are small
But someday, we will be tall
That's when we will conquer all
In the Name of Megatron, rah rah rah!"

Soon enough a pony would be forced to radio that the place was falling prey to zombies and scream as if she was being eaten down the radio before turning it off. With the ponies chipped and unable to act against them and the trust they had in each other that came because they were both on a formal mission (which banned them from acting against each other under penalty of treason or at the very least extreme annoyance from High Priest Warfire) they could defrag next to each other. Normally, even in barracks Decepticons slept in a single room by themselves not just for comfort but for safety. When MasterBlaster once stayed the night with Vintage (itself a sign of rarely given trust and possible partly because of their immigrant status) they had wedges to put under their doors.

Loyal Star suggested that the ling could infect it's entire Hive with the loyalty virus.

Over the next day or two they would start teaching the most basic tenants of Megatronism like no narking, even if that meant that a pony who was somehow unaccounted for escaped altogether. "If we had to, we would rather as the lesser of two evils have a pony manage to escape rather then be narked on, that's how bad narking is. You should teach it to the unchipped foals as quickly as possible."


Cybertron
Main Military Base


The raid would be as good as ever. The insulting Human Empire would be utterly destroyed for daring to consider itself the supreme rulers of the universe. From a Decepticon point of view, humans were deeply inferior both mentally and physically to the Decepticons and indeed to any robotic race in general.

Sapient ponies were generally not liked either, mostly because of their "Friendship is Magic" philosophy. It wasn't seen as total bilge water-any adult bot who lacked Loyalty to Megatron had a an involuntary Domintel/Military enforced foundry pit visit or firing squad in his future, and Loyal Star's loyalty was both publically and privately rewarded by Megatron, for saving His life and His Empire. Laughter had a place to a point-bots had their own jokes and humour, although anti-Megatron jokes were banned and practical jokes could easily get the joker blasted or even outright killed. Kindness except to one's not yet fully sapient offspring was ridiculed, Honesty was only useful for Debuggers or for Forintel and Domintel reports, (General Soundwave would not take kindly to being lied to by his agents) and except for one day of the year, Christmas Day, Generosity was universally thought of as a load of dangerous rubbish.

Even on Christmas Day, presents were normally sold for a fraction of their true value rather then be given away.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Moon

Once the moutaintop was sufficiently hollowed out, Navigator and Loyal Star made it into a decent, but rustic, home. Their next job was to ensure that they'd have enough Energon, but this was easy enough thanks to Moon still dealing with not only its natural zombies, but the ones that were created by their spraying. After cloaking up so that nobody could see where their base was, they simply flew out and raided a refinery. This refinery wasn't the closest one, or even near to being it - if anyone came looking, they wanted to make sure that the search would not be fruitful.

After collecting a good amount of oil, they cloaked up again before returning to their village. Once there, they set up field refineries to make it into something worth drinking. The chipped ponies looked over at this amazing sight every chance they got, but they didn't get many chances thanks to being tasked with the temple-building job.

They then installed their sheets of anti-EMP fabric - normally carried in Decepticon field kits in case of more dire emergencies - at the cave entrance to serve as a sort of door. Now that they had all of the basics covered and had relative privacy, Navigator was able to talk to Loyal Star in a non-public way.

"Your general intentions were good, and many of the things you did worked out very well. However, you need to pay more attention to strategic possibilities as well as social dynamics. The first problem is your desire to release that changleling! Sending him out into the wider world without specific orders would have cost us a great intelligence asset. Not only that, it would be easy for him to get busted, and if that happened, our chip could be discovered. If said chip was removed, he could spill every bean. We have to make sure that the chance of that happening is minimized as we send him on espionage missions."

"Second, the old Harmonist priest is lucky we still allow him to live at all!! It is standard Decepticon policy to eradicate the old leadership of a conquered area, and not only that, do so in a completely summary fashion. I don't know what you were thinking trying to install the very person who is naturally our most ardent opponent back into a position of power, but that absolutely cannot happen. In fact, he will be publicly deactivated once the Zombie Effect ends and he won't be able to come back at us as an undead. The same goes for anyone else who turns out to have had top government or social authority here. We absolutely must not have people around who, in the case of the failure of their chips, will be in the perfect position to command authority in the event of a counterrevolution."

"In light of your attempt to promote him, I am ordering you to review your Basic Military Doctrine Module and bring that information back to full consciousness. Focus on the part that details how resistance groups typically coalesce around their old leaders in an attempt to return their areas to what they still think of as their proper ways. You need to understand that an old leader, whether it is a political or social one, is always to be treated as the enemy whether or not he or she appears to be one at the time."

Navigator unconsciously revved and made harrumph-like sounds with his engine all through the time he was talking about the deposed priest, sounding somewhat like an old-fashioned farm tractor doing heavy labor. He clearly was not happy that his trainee had missed such a basic part of Decepticon occupation doctrine. Though he didn't mention it outright, Loyal Star's fears of this impacting his clerical career were accurate; he would have to spend more time with Navigator to be sure that he got things like this right.

"Now. Onto strategic details. Since you've never been part of the Intelligence Division, it's reasonable that you don't know so much about what to do with a spy. Your suggestion of having our 'ling infect his hive with the Loyalty Virus is something that a layman would think of. It shows an understanding of what a spy can do, but not one of just how much more useful an agent can be - especially an agent who can change his form at will." Navigator lowered his voice now, even though he had been using Binary all along. One could never assume that nobody was within earshot, or that nobody could understand one's language.

"The first problem with that is that after a period of time, the immune system of an infected person will defeat the Loyalty Virus. Currently it takes about a month, but even that isn't long enough when the goal is to cause permanent defection from the original side. That is why the DLV is just one tool in the Military's dark-ops arsenal instead of its primary weapon. It's also why we must not allow the DLV to be connected to this location. It makes it very obvious that it's something done by the Decepticons. If anyone in that hive knows where our spy had been before he returned, it'll be like a giant neon arrow pointing right at this spot."

"The other problem, however, is the bigger one. It's a waste of the potential of a changeling spy to merely have him infect his own hive." Navigator paused, letting this hang in the air for a couple of seconds. "Not only are there many chances for failure that way, there is incalculable missed opportunity. The rest of the world might leave them alone, considering them to be a weird cult, but they wouldn't be motivated to convert by them."

"If the spy is able to penetrate the Grand Stall [the planet's congress], on the other hand, he could chip every senator over the course of time. Once we had a supermajority of the legislators chipped up, we would have ourselves a puppet government, and through it, we could enact measures meant to destigmatize, legitimize, and finally, mandate Megatronism."

"And THAT is what you do with an agent as versatile as a changeling."

Navigator went on to explain several more details. Since everyone knew who the senators were and how they acted, the changeling would not directly replace them. Instead, he would be forced to penetrate the Grand Stall as a lowly intern, and he would do the usual gofer jobs that interns were assigned - until he happened to end up alone with one of the senators, and out of the view of any cameras. Then, he would chip that senator. Soon after that, he would resign his internship, only to change his looks and reapply for his old job under another identity. He would repeat this process until he nailed at least 66% of the legislators - enough to override any vetoes or filibusters that were mounted against their ever-more-Decepticonnish policies. The goal, however, would be to chip ALL of them. Then, non-unanimous votes would only be for show, and the paper "opposition" would always make sure that it wasn't actually effective.

"Did you ever get an AEDP pack called Subversion of Democracy?" Navigator asked Loyal Star. "If not, I shall have the Temple provide you with a copy as soon as our mission here ends. It's essential knowledge for missions like this, where we're coming in as a hostile, but non-military, force."

Notably, Navigator had no concern for the president of Moon, who had been elected after the deaths of the Harmonist monarchs. The people had decided that since they didn't know enough about any of their lesser politicians to feel comfortable granting any of them a monarchy, it would elect presidents for limited terms. They had also given their congress enough power to block the president's moves, believing this to be a good stopgap against bad ideas.

Now, however, it meant that the Decepticons could ignore the president entirely if it could seize control of the congress. The only remaining issue would be keeping their congressdrones in office. If they angered their constituents too much, they'd get voted out. This would, for now, slow the speed of change.

After some more discussion, Navigator called the changeling into the cave. There, in the far back, he gave the 'ling its mission and a single control chip. It was to fly back - looking like an innocuous animal, of course - every time it needed another one. This would make it so that, if a chip was discovered, it would be more likely to seem like some unidentified, but innocent, electronic component. Large quantities of things like that, on the other hand, would look suspicious and invite further investigation.

The changeling was not really put off by this job. Though the ponies were great food sources, he was typically irked by their general worldview, which was against the sort of machinations that changelings normally did. The thought of helping turn the entire moon into a Decepticon-style paradise, and perhaps one day being allowed to openly corral up ponies for food the way humans kept cattle, was actually pretty good. "I don't know if this'll work for you," he said, "but the rest of my hive might actually want in on this. We have a lot to gain by the fall of the Grand Stall."

To his surprise, Navigator shook his head "no." "This is a deep cover operation," he demurred. "Having an entire hive involved, or even knowing about it, would surely blow that cover sky high. Only we must know about this. The rest of Moon will, if all goes well, only find out many years later - once Megatronism is the official religion, and the people are sure to laud it as the plan that saved them from their old and inferior ways."

Soon after, the changeling took to the sky as a bird, with his secret payload carefully hidden under his body feathers. Once he got near the capital building, he would find a place to change into a pony and attempt to get a position as an intern. If he failed at that, or there were no openings, he was to try to be a janitor instead. This alternative wasn't as good since it'd only allow him access to senators who stayed late, but it was, at least, the sort of low-level position that rarely aroused suspicion.

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

Cybertron

By now, Decepticon raiders were returning in droves, all hauling trailers full of oil or traveling with cargo-bots. The Cybertronian Business Association had a fleet of 10 cargo-bots, while the ICC had a huge flotilla. All around them, small gangs were swarming in. Everyone was in great spirits, even one of the gangs far in the back - Master Blaster's group.

Vintage, who had once made off with an entire derelict ship, didn't go for vintage equipment this time. He came flying back in a brand new medium-sized, sporty-shaped, space cruiser. It was too bad, so sad for whatever planet had made this beauty only to have its crew turn entirely to zombies after handling infected supplies from home. Other Decepticons had passed it by, being too small to get in and work its controls despite the surprisingly large cockpit area. Clearly, the inventing race was quite large, but alas, they were still only about 1/4 the size of a typical Decepticon.

Vintage, however, had quickly zipped back to his store and mind-transferred to a scout body someone had sold him. After making the needed repairs to it, he went back to the ship and managed to jam himself into the control room with the smaller form. Now it was his, and soon enough, he would remodel that control room so he could use it properly.

Meanwhile, the Decepticon Military was finishing up with its slave-taking, and its cargo-bots were flying to the big slave market on Earth in a steady stream. The night sky of the pony planet was now adorned with a glowing dot: the still-burning surface of what had called itself the Human Empire. Ponies who realized what it was were mostly scared or even strangely sad for the event, and this reaction caused the Decepticons to come down more harshly on them. However, those who were observed hiding smiles were left alone; these were clearly more sensible people who at least realized that, had the Human Empire had its way, they would have been on the wrong side of a different stick.

[Vallermoore]

Moon

When they had raided the oil Loyal Star looked up at the great red gas giant that was glowing softly in the sky and said "It would be great to fly through that planet's atmosphere for fun." Navigator gave a little good humoured snort. "Yes, until you lost your body to a lightning strike or were just sucked down into the planet's interior and lost a body. The winds of those planets can bring even one of us down. Besides, you're doing the Leader's work. Unlike most bots, you have a job to do-one that will one day result in your full ordination." He then proceeded to point out that whilst Loyal Star was doing his best, he had made so many mistakes that he needed to check his Basic Military Doctrine Module. Loyal Star yes sired and then pulled the said Module into his mind and was silent whilst he had a good read and filed the important parts where they would easily come up when needed, in the same way that his Treason file was held in case he ever needed to check it (not that he would ever commit treason.) Loyal Star's fears were accurate-his path to full ordination had been slowed a little. It turned out he didn't have this vital pack and told Navigator this.

Navigator had great plans for the ling agent of theirs, a ling that was not as unhappy as the ponies. In some ways, changelings and Decepticons were similar. Both practised secrecy and deception on a large scale. Both hated narks. Both raided-Decepticons for oil, and changelings for love and love sources. Both were ruled by a dictatorship, Decepticons by Leader Megatron, and changelings by the Queens of their Hives. And both Megatron and the Queens had to be the perfect member of their respective species to maintain power and avoid coup attempts or outright revolt. Decepticons would happily slaughter or enslave any Hive that got in their way, but they did have a slight respect for the Changeling Way as it was so close to their own.



Cybertron

By now huge numbers of pleased, bright-eyed bots both in and out of the Military were returning home, with large amounts of oil and other loot. The zombie event was a happy time for the Decepticons. The ICC had done very well indeed, SolarTempest and the Cybertronian Business Association had plenty of loot, Vintage had a new spaceship, and the small gangs including MasterBlaster's one had got themselves a trailer or two of oil and as much loot as they could stuff their panels with. Amongst other things, MasterBlaster had blasted open a bank's gold vault for the gold inside, and then blasted a fireworks factory just to watch it go bang. In doing so, he had nearly exploded a purple bot's trailer of oil. The purple bot blasted him, but MasterBlaster's Ultimate Mods just absorbed the blast, and he folded his arms and smirked at the other bot, who had backed down, lacking such powerful mods of his own. It did mean however that MasterBlaster's brash ways had most likely made himself another Decepticon enemy which was never very wise in the long term. After getting back to Cybertron MasterBlaster went to one of the richer areas and entered a pet shop which sold Decepticon pets, marked "Gripper's Pet Emporium." Remembering that he had a pet already, he decided he would just window-shop for a couple of minutes.

Megatron was immensely happy at all the loot he had, and also at dealing violently with yet another set of uppity biologicals who thought themselves a Master Race when any Decepticon could just step on them.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

There were quite a few bots at Gripper's Pet Emporium, and there were even more potential pets for them to see. Each of these had been given some time of flight-capable body, and the designs were amazing. Instead of the usual parrotish styles, there were relatively big raptors with intricate feathering, kite-shaped ones, enlarged hummingbird-styled ones that could hover, and even a couple of copies of these infernal things.

"Cliff racers." The salesbot had come up behind MasterBlaster without warning. "You probably won't want one. Only strange people actually want one of those." In response, one of the hairless, leather-skinned dino-birds ca-cawed obnoxiously and metallically. It tried to peck MasterBlaster, but the bars of its cage blocked it. "Some immigrant ordered them, but he gave them back after they kept pecking him in the head for no reason."

When MasterBlaster turned around, he saw someone leaving with a giant falcon-like sapient CPU on his shoulder. It was held by a collar, and seemed to be waiting patiently for its new owner to trust it enough to loosen up on the leash. Its red eyes glowed connivishly, and the very ability for it to think of a connive showed that it had a decent amount of intelligence.

"These are not supposed to be let loose," the salesman smiled, glancing in that customer's direction. "But what can I say. I only work here." It was clear that he expected the buyer to train his 'bird' to pull stuff, only to end up without a minion.

Suddenly, MasterBlaster was jarred by the sensation of something trying to stab through his armor like a big needle. He whipped around to see a huge mosquito-shaped robo-animal with a 10-foot wingspan and a 20-foot-long body. Another salesbot was running up after it, and while that was happening, the mosquito tried once again to stab its proboscis through to MasterBlaster's internal Energon tank - an attempt that failed completely thanks to his upgraded armor. Soon, the other salesbot had the thing corralled and put a thick rubberized cap over the proboscis.

"This is Lifesucker," the salesbot said seamlessly. "You'd be the perfect master for him. You have the armor needed to survive the training phase! He has already been trained to suck the Energon out of anyone who he doesn't recognize as the owner of the property he's on, so all you need to do is take him home and teach that YOU'RE the owner. Oh, and teach him not to kill anyone else you let come over, or any other pets you have. Of course, it will take a while to do this. Two or three months. And you'll need to feed him. But surely you have some enemies to sic him on, or you can take him down to the outskirts of Iacon and let him menace them..."

MasterBlaster, sensing that this particular sapient CPU might be a huge pain in the exhaust no matter what he did, demurred. Soon, he left the store. Though he was wowed by the intricacy of some of the designs and the sheer number of 'animals' available - odd, given that sapient CPUs were only supposed to arise basically by flukes and accidents - he could also tell that they were not socialized to be nice, and in some cases, didn't even seem tamable.

As he walked down the street, his eyes caught the motion of a small flying object far above. There, a huge falcon circled on the air currents, a leash trailing from its neck. Soon, a bot in plane mode appeared, seeming to try to get near the robo-bird, but the falcon just flapped a couple of times to catch a different air current and started circling there instead. It was clear that its owner would have a very hard time getting it back - if he ever did.

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

"Hey, MB!" A voice called out. MasterBlaster turned around to see Vintage, who was sporting a new coat of paint and a wax job. "What's up there?" Vintage looked at where MasterBlaster had been watching.

"Oh, it's one of those." Vintage chuckled as he watched it expertly dodge the bigger and less maneuverable fighter that was now clearly after it. "People forget that these store pets are Decepticons just like they are. If you want a good one, you have to either find it or have it arise in your own workshop. Otherwise, you're just gonna get scammed."

"If you watch long enough, you'll see that the little falcon's fuel will last longer than the Energon that big guy has. He's letting the wind do most of the work, while the guy trying to catch him has to use his jets for everything AND is using extra fuel to do tight turns. So eventually, the big guy has to go away. Then he loses. He'll never see that bird again." Vintage crossed his arms and nodded smugly. Apparently he knew how this racket worked. He did not, however, give away the rest of the game; that would be un-Decepticon of him. It would be up to MasterBlaster to figure it out for himself.

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

Moon

The changeling soon arrived in the capital, found a spot where he could change without being seen, and took on the appearance of a very young stallion. While he was angry at being shanghaied into Megatronism and into working for these strange bots, he had to appreciate the machinations Navigator had made him part of. It was all nicely Machiavellian.

He had no trouble getting his first intern job, and to his pleasant surprise, he got his first chance to chip someone up not long after that. The senator, an older stallion whose mind was on something else, had gone into the bathroom. It didn't take a lot of thought to follow him in, and after making sure nobody else was there, jump him and stick him with a chip. The chip took effect before he could even whinny in pain or surprise, and soon enough, he was getting his orders. The orders were simple for now: Lie low, act normal, and await further orders.

Soon enough, the changeling had switched into a new disguise and was back in the capital building awaiting his next target. The other senators weren't as unlucky, so he would have to wait patiently for opportunity.

The next opportunity finally came a month later, in the copy room. He came in to copy some things for the legislator who had hired him, and found a different senator standing at the copy machine in an oddly-secretive way. The mare tried to order him out, but he ignored that and blatantly charged her, sticking her with a chip before she could yell for security. Now, he had two.

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

In the small village in the mountains, things were going well even though it was also boring. Navigator had forced someone to send a 'last message,' and then, he set up devices around the town. These devices projected an image of an abandoned village to anyone who flew over the area. Next, he tasked Loyal Star with most of the preaching and teaching of Megatronism, standing by to make sure the lower-ranked priest really had his doctrine correct.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Foreign Intelligence Headquarters
Cybertron

A highly classified, encrypted report soon reached Soundwave's desk, secretly sent by a "copy machine" in a strategic location. At first, he perused it with no particular interest, but then, he suddenly stopped and read it again.

"Agent 9348934 Reporting. Senator Chuckleface is involved in a bribery ring using a foundation as a front. I have all of the documents now, and am currently able to leak them. However, new developments make it a bad idea to leak this information or otherwise interfere with her position. It seems that other agents are highly active here. Chuckleface has just been completely subverted by a changeling spy using our technology. This spy said little, but he claimed to do this in the name of Megatron and ordered her to act normal and await further orders. I believe these other agents may be attempting to take control of the entire government."

Soundwave didn't have to investigate further. He knew by the location - Moon - that Navigator surely had something to do with this. The type of chip that was able to force someone to act normal while awaiting further orders had only been given to him. He leaned back, and would have smiled if his mouth wasn't covered by a solid metal piece.

[Vallermoore]

Moon

The changeling got to quite enjoy what he was doing, although he wished he was doing it for his Queen rather then for Megatron. Decepticons had a mixed reputation with changelings. All hives who knew of them respected the giant war robots and the Decepticon Way that was so close to their own, but some feared and hated them whilst others worked for them willingly. It would take a while but slowly the Grand Stall would have it's members enslaved by the Decepticons. Privately Loyal Star thought that if it were not treason to sell such chips abroad, it would be a good way to get very rich indeed. Husbands or wives or boyfriends or girlfriends could make sure their loved one always did what they were told and never cheated on them or divorced. However, it most certainly was treason to do that, as Decepticon tech could easily be turned by biologicals against Decepticons. And the last thing Loyal Star wanted to do was to commit treason against his God-not only would he be killed and sent to the Realm of Punishment but it would utterly ruin his clerical career.

Once the village was made to look abandoned, Loyal Star rigged up something in his mind boards using just his existing boards and files so that he could silently preach sermons to himself and it would let him know if he was doing well, introducing slight heresy, or introducing major heresy. The sapient ponies built the temple, grew food for themselves and looked after a small cattle herd as they had done before the takeover, and read books, looked after their foals, played computer games and the couples were romantic to each other. It would have been nasty to stop them dating, as they were more then normal slaves toiling in mines. Loyal Star preached sermons to them so they knew how to be good Megatronists. Navigator quite often used his computer games so he wouldn't be bored. Loyal Star did so on occasion but he also looked through his Megatronist Module sometimes like a biological priest would read his holy books, and thought quietly to himself how amazing it was to be a Decepticon, and how much better it was then being a sapient pony. Being a pony had been good, but being a war robot was much better. He decided that one day he would buy a Megatronist Holy book that was of foil-paper and Decepticon sized, and keep it in his mansion that he would buy, as he was a rich bot thanks to risking his life and possibly even his soul serving Megatron. If he had died with Megatron stuck in the afterlife, Pony Hell might have got it's hooves on his soul.

Foreign Intelligence Headquarters
Cybertron

General Soundwave was pleased with Navigator, and if all went well, decided that when the currant mission was over he would call him to his office to praise him and offer him a highly interesting mission.

Cybertron

MasterBlaster liked looking around at the pets on show. A lot of bots would look around in a shop first, find something they liked, leave and return with the needed Cubes or if the thing was expensive enough, a vault key and location. Most of the pets were falcons, raptors, eagles and the like, caged for safety. In many cases, there was intelligence of a sort in those glowing eyes, and it wasn't friendly. Even in pet shops with surprisingly low levels of corruption, Decepticon Sapient CPUs were not of a friendly type. A Sapient CPU that was too friendly from the start, might be an Autobot Sapient CPU, and that was the sort of thing that brought the unwelcome attention of Domintel down on the luckless shopkeeper.

MasterBlaster jumped six feet in the air in shock (a tiny distance in a full size Decepticon body, when his armour got stabbed at. Now he knew why a sign outside said "No non-sapient juvenile bots allowed." He found himself facing a robo-mosquito and refrained from trying to hurt it. Even with all his mods, he never, ever, started a fight in a shop. Apart from anything else, it was sheer bad manners.
A salesbot hurriedly got it under control and it didn't try to stab him, most likely because biting the hand that fed you was a stupid thing to do. Soon MasterBlaster left the store, where he was greeted by Vintage, a bot he was glad to see. Where bots did have friendships, they could be surprisingly strong, like everything else in the Empire.

"What's up there? "Oh, it's one of those. People forget that these store pets are Decepticons just like they are. If you want a good one, you have to either find it or have it arise in your own workshop. Otherwise, you're just gonna get scammed. If you watch long enough, you'll see that the little falcon's fuel will last longer than the Energon that big guy has. He's letting the wind do most of the work, while the guy trying to catch him has to use his jets for everything AND is using extra fuel to do tight turns. So eventually, the big guy has to go away. Then he loses. He'll never see that bird again."

"That bird is probably happiest in the shop where he is well looked after and fed. If the shop treated him badly, the shop would never see him again either. I'm thinking of making my pet as fast as I am so he can fly along with me occasionally. I had a good time during the zombie event; as well as looting I blasted a human fireworks factory just to see it go bang. That annoyed a purple bot as it nearly blew up his loot so he blasted at me but my Ultimate mods just absorbed it so I folded my arms and grinned and he went off in a huff."

MasterBlaster was possibly putting himself in danger here. If the bot was angry enough and had enough Energon, he could try and blow MasterBlaster up, poison his Energon, find and break into his mansion, level up with even stronger mods (to Ultimate's great delight) or hire ICC assassins or teams of strong Scroungers to either kill or enslave MasterBlaster through sheer weight of numbers. Even if MasterBlaster mind transferred in time he would have lost his powerful body that he had spent so much on. Bots, even powerful rich bots, who often annoyed other bots didn't live very long-like domestic raiders, sooner or later they would get in one fight too many.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

"You do have a point about the pets being treated well at the shops," Vintage responded. "The smart store owners always make sure their CPUs are kept full of Energon, and when they're closed, they give them plenty of attention. Still, not all store owners are smart. They set a bank of about 100 CPUs going, run them until the automatic testing system detects sapience, and stick them in mass-produced bodies. Then they just put 'em in cages and sell 'em off."

"Surprisingly, those can be the best ones to get, but ONLY if you get there right after they've been embodied. Then, you're pretty much training them from youth, like buying a puppy on Earth. But if they've been caged up for too long, they get all kinds of nasty habits and are the closest thing to feral you'll find on Cybertron. Then, they're only good for chaining up and using as guards for areas you don't want anyone messing with - and that you don't mind having to fight your own guard to get into. Scrounger gangs tend to like these."

The two looked back up at the sky. Sure enough, the Decepticon seemed to be hesitating, while the falcon was easily switching from updraft to updraft as if it was all fun. Not long after, the plane went on his way, and the bird divebombed down between a couple of random buildings.

"He'll go back home after the coast is clear," Vintage said. "He won't go right back just now, because if he does, someone might see where he went. But now that he got rid of the guy who was trying to catch him, he'll want to stay unobtrusive. Many people shoot down free Sapient CPUs because they can attack unpredictably. He will have been trained to hide himself well."

Vintage paused for a moment. "Sapient CPUs actually don't have to have personality traits like that. They can be nice, and if they weren't metal, they could be cuddly as well. But a lot of Decepticons want an edgy pet instead, so their original owners train them to be good partners in crime or good intimidation 'animals.'"

"That said, most people who actually get Sapient CPUs from the time they are self-aware don't train them that way. They give them little mascot-style bodies - parrot-like ones are popular - and keep them in their shops. Those are pretty friendly to people they know, though strangers should take as much caution as a smart human would when approaching an unknown parrot. Parrots can deliver a decent bite even though they're not generally considered vicious, after all."

"Getting one from the start isn't easy. It usually happens for those who test CPUs for longevity. A test like that involves keeping the chip running for extended periods to see how long it'll last. Over 99% of the time, it'll simply process test calculations until failure. But every so often, one will become self-aware. The testing system will detect that and signal the owner, who can then build it a body if he wants to. This is actually a rare occurrence under normal conditions - about 1/100,000. But so many chips are made and tested here on Cybertron that in raw numbers, it amounts to thousands per year."

"Pet shops, however, have ways of pretty much ensuring that their CPUs will turn into Sapient CPUs. Alas, I don't know the secret. I just know that their supplies are way too reliable for them to be relying on chance."

Upon hearing about the destruction of the fireworks factory, Vintage groaned a little. "You should have jacked their stock so you could have a real show here," he said, clearly distressed that he wouldn't get to see a huge show himself from said stock. "Just blowing the factory up sends fireworks off in all directions, and they only look really cool if they all go upwards!"

"As for the guy who's loot was in the way, don't worry about him too much. The Zombie Event is a big, chaotic free-for-all. Not only that, you're one bot among billions now that you're back here. The chance of running into him again is slight, especially since his loot ended up okay. Since he still has his loot, he probably won't want to spend it on a combination of DomIntel bribes and the level of arms and armor he'd need to stand a chance against you in a fight. Still, it's always a good idea to test your Energon before drinking it if you've had it sitting unattended somewhere for a long time. But that's just standard safety for a gang leader."

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

Moon

As time went on, the original village became resigned to being Megatronist if not actually convinced. As expected, however, the foals took it up without much reservation since they saw no other belief systems being modeled. Only a few would really question it and still reject it after getting proper Megatronist explanations. These few were quickly rejected and eventually learned to pretend to believe even if they thought it was BS. In short, they acted much like human children did, with the vast majority at least being assimilated by the culture if not the mythos.

For now, Leader Megatron himself saw no need to appear like he had done in Unterra. There, his appearance proved his reality. Here, the majority of the foals were not yet old enough to even question it, and the adults had no doubts that he existed. The time would come when he would arrive, but that would wait until the foals were old enough to remember his grand entrance and assign more importance to it than "wow, cool."

In the capitol building, the changeling was doing quite well. It wouldn't be long before the forced Megatronists had a supermajority and would be able to ramrod legislation through. However, they couldn't just immediately order loyalty to Megatronism, or they would only get near-complete civil disobedience. Their first law would simply be to begin teaching Megatronism alongside a few other religions in a newly-mandatory "comparative religions" class. The catch, of course, was that the course material would be carefully designed by the Decepticon Bureau of Propaganda so that every religion that wasn't Megatronism would look like bunk. Megatronism, while not being overtly promoted, would be presented in a way that made it seem - at least subconsciously - to be the sane, logical, and reasonable option out of all of the alternatives.

Then, after the youth were "softened" to the idea of the Megatronist religion, the controlled legislature could start to make other moves to get it even more accepted in the general culture. Once that was done, it would be time for Navigator and Loyal Star to go to their next deployment. The changeling would stay in position and nab incoming congressponies to maintain the supermajority and ensure that the Grand Stall stayed friendly to the religion. This would go on until the changeling was too old to do the job. By then, the foundation blocks would be in place for the rest, though a ForIntel agent might occasionally need to come in to keep things moving in the right direction.

After the first sufficiently-trained generation got old enough to take office itself, Megatron would take things up to the next level, sending a priest to say the benediction at the opening of some sessions of the Grand Stall, getting a day set aside as Megatronist Day, and things like that. Finally, one or two more generations after that, things would be - assuming nothing derailed the plan - ready for the final stage: Making Megatronism the national religion and causing all of Moon to assent to assimilation into the Decepticon Empire.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The senators were not nearly as willing to adapt to Megatronism as the villagers. Senator Chuckleface in particular used most of her mental energy trying to override the chip, especially when it forced her to use her bribery ring money not on the fancy new car she intended to buy, but instead, on a party for her closest confidants and on a huge bonus for her changeling intern who was supposed to be working for FREE! She was especially incensed when it turned out that the party was a cover for what turned out to be a massive chipping session that turned all of her confidants into forced Megatronist slaves. Now they all hated her guts, not that she really cared, but she was pissed that it wasn't HER connive that did it. They were supposed to be With Her, not With Some Alien Robot God.

Senator Chuckleface's bad luck was far from over. Before long, she triggered ForIntel's alert that she was about to override the chip. Just when she could feel herself regaining self-control, she suddenly stopped breathing and her heart stopped as well. "Did you really think my chips wouldn't have an emergency killswitch?" Megatron's voice taunted in her mind as she fell to the ground, dead.

~~~~~~~~~~~

As Loyal Star had a slight worry that his soul could end up in Pony Hell, his Megatronist Doctrine module activated. It reminded him that Leader Megatron had the Afterlife Controller under his dominion, so no Megatronist would have to worry about some other religion's Hell. As long as he remained a loyal Megatronist and the Divine Leader stayed both divine and the leader, Loyal Star had nothing to worry about on that front.

[Vallermoore]

Moon

Loyal Star gave a little smile when his Megatronist Doctrine Manual activated itself. He didn't have to worry about his afterlife. Perhaps some day he would have a beef with another Decepticon and lose, although he had no known Decepticon foes and if he carried on like he did, was unlikely to make any. Indeed, he had only ever used his blasters on another Decepticon when clearly on Temple business-and those bots were not in any position to come looking for him with their bodies utterly destroyed and in some cases, their souls in the Realm of Punishment. But if some day he did pass on to the afterlife, if he had spent his whole Decepticon life as he was living it now, it would very likely be the Realm of Endless Energon. Being on a covert mission, he didn't use his radio, but he looked forward to one day meeting Fire Eater again, this time as a Full Priest. Fire Eater would surely be proud of him for making it the full way, all the way from the unlikely beginnings of a jobless defrocked excommunicated ex-Harmonist pony priest.

The little foals for the most part were quickly becoming little Megatronists. Just as with new-built Decepticons though, friendship was still important to them at this age. Their parents were helpless to teach them Ponyism, as the chips in effect gagged them when they tried to mention the subject.

*****
Senator Chuckleface really did strain against the chip, determined to break free of it and tell the non-chipped ponies what had happened. Apart from anything else, she was furious that her bribery money was spent on a party for her close confidents, and even more so when they all got chipped. She was so angry that she overran her chip-and triggered the kill switch in it that gave her a heart attack. Did you really think my chips wouldn't have an emergency kill switch?" Megatron's voice taunted in her dying mind. Strangely, as she had never been a willing Megatronist for a second, she was not considered a traitor and didn't go to the Realm of Punishment. Instead she ended up in a gloomy, cold but bearable biological Neutral Realm with plain but edible grass to eat and other ponies to talk to. Had Megatron not taken over the Afterlife, ironically she would have ended up in the horrors of Pony Hell for being corrupt so she got off lightly.

Cybertron

"As long as my current pet lives I won't need another. But someday he might be killed in some firefight and then I will want another Sapient CPU. I know BombBomb doesn't want to hurt me and a good Sapient CPU that has not gone feral is a great pet. Mine has *fur* on him so he's strokable, at least by me. If you want to see a fireworks show I'd happily buy some for us both to enjoy. It's good to know I won't end up in a fight to the death with that random bot over a little thing."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Biological Neutral Realm

Chuckleface wasted no time in letting everyone know that she was a Big Shot Senator, and not only that, had once served as the International Minister for her Big Shot Nation of Moon. To her dismay, almost everyone else responded with blank looks and "where's thats." Still, she charged around acting like a big shot and just smirked and laughed at everybody who raised any questions or challenged her self-assumed authority.

It didn't take long at all for a tough-looking mare to seek her out, only to get her face smirked in when she challenged the newcomer.

"Apparently you forgot that this place is owned by Divine Leader Megatron," the tough mare growled in her raspy voice - a voice that normally arose from years of smoking and drinking. Chuckleface only laughed at this, not realizing - or at least, not admitting to realizing - the implications of this fact. In response, the mare drew a rather large-looking handgun, clicked off the safety, and aimed it directly at Chuckleface's smirky face.

"That means there are no laws against blowing that smile right off of your ugly mug." The mare said bitchily, giving her target a hateful glare. Chuckleface stood there frozen, her mind caught between wanting to gasp and wanting to follow her years of self-programming and laugh derisively once again. She never got a chance to decide on a reaction. "May your next destination be Hell." The mare finished, pulling the trigger.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cloning Center, Earth
Pony Production Room #10

Most foals looked around for a mother's teat when they were first taken from their vats, but today, one would respond much differently. This newborn filly would begin to choke due to attempting to both gasp and laugh and smirk all at the same time.

"This one's going to be a nasty piece of work," a nanny-bot said, holding the newborn in 'her' arms. She set the foal down, expecting it to quickly find the artificial teat that was nearby. Instead, it looked miffed at its weak legs, and after seeing its surroundings, very confused. It looked up and tried to ask where it was and how THIS could POSSIBLY have happened, but its mouth could not be controlled well enough to do more than make a few squeaks. Then it was suddenly seized with hunger, and to its obvious horror, the only food around was from this fake mother thing that already had 3 other newborns sucking on it. For several minutes, it refused to join in, but finally instinct got the better of it.

The nanny-bots looked at each other.

"Definitely a condemnee."
"Yep, it's someone Megatron has condemned to slavery for sure."
"Did you see how haughty and dismissive it was going to act to us?!"
"Couldn't miss it. You know where this one has to go!"

Later, a file was updated. Foal #947740543, Female, would be reserved for Megatron Metals Mine #1 - if it lasted that long. Before it was old enough to work, it would be given harsh training to teach it its proper place, and if it didn't learn, it would be declared defective and executed in front of the others as a warning.

Just five years later, Chuckleface would find herself in yet another realm. This time, it would be Pony Hell.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the mountains, things were moving along well. One day, everyone was surprised when what appeared to be a pegasus landed despite the cloaking over the town. Once some got a closer look, they realized how he knew to land there. He flashed red eyes, showing that he was not from the central government of Moon, but instead, was from Cybertron's government.

Foals with a mental age of about six quickly crowded around, amazed to see a Decepticon in pony form. He seemed happy to soak up the excitement and adoration, and steadfastly ignored the parents, who he knew would have likely preferred to throw him in a slag pit.

Soon, he, Navigator, and Loyal Star went into their cave, and he delivered the message. Their work on Moon was done, at least for now. They would need to set up a preacher to hold services in their absence, and then they could return to the Metal Planet. "Here is a note from the First Temple," he said, pulling one out of a hidden panel in his flank.

In the note, Warfire explained that he had worked with ForIntel to determine who would be the best layman preacher. ForIntel had passed on which ponies had given the least resistance to their chip, and therefore, would be the most likely to remain true to its commands. There were two who stood out: One was a weak-willed old stallion who simply couldn't resist the chip's control in the slightest, while the other was actually starting to agree with Megatronism's worldview and therefore was losing his desire to object to it. Warfire suggested putting the conniver in as the head lay preacher and setting up the old stallion as his assistant.

Before long, Loyal Star made this suggestion official. To his delight, the tricky one, a stallion nearing middle age by the name of Waymaker, flicked his tail with genuine excitement at the appointment. The older one, alas, simply looked resigned to his fate. His lack of excitement was unlikely to be a problem, though - at his age, he likely would not last long. The villagers, however, were pleased to have someone that they knew as a kindly old pony recognized, even if only as an assistant. It was likely that Warfire had thought of this and suggested getting him some kind of a position as a PR move. Waymaker would be doing most of the actual work now.

Later that night, Loyal Star and Navigator would activate full cloaking, and after ascending in tight circles until they cleared the mountains, head back to Cybertron.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

This time, the two priests did not have to go right back out after arriving at the First Temple to check in. Warfire met them at the back and led them into his office. There, the first thing he noted was that they smelled of cooked soil. "Even the heat of re-entry couldn't get rid of all of the organic material," he said. "Fortunately, it will have cooked any living microbes that were on you. But once you leave here and defrag, the first thing you'd better do is give yourselves a really thorough cleaning and wax job. Organic stuff - even plain dust and soil - attracts water, and that'll cause rust all along your panels and joints if you don't get rid of it. And make sure that you aren't rusting already!"

"For now, your next task isn't really a task. You need to spend six months here on Cybertron and get reimmersed in true Decepticon culture. It's important that you don't stay gone so long that you forget what Cybertron is really like!"

"Oh, before you do that, we should discuss how things went on Moon. Navigator, sending that changeling to subvert the entire place was a genius idea. And Loyal Star, your excellent teaching and treatment of the foals ensures that your assigned town will become truly Megatronist as soon as the older generations die off. I would guess that you'll be ready for ordination soon, though we want to send you on another mission first in order to be sure that you've properly learned what types of people are best to leave in charge after your missions end. After your six-month break, you'll report back here to get your next assignment."

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

Vintage perked up at the idea of seeing a fireworks show. He quickly took MasterBlaster up on the offer. "I don't see them enough," he said. "I get caught up in running the shop, and the time just slips by. But it's been years since I've seen a proper display like the ones they used to show in New Y~~...um, on another planet. There, they would blow off hundreds of them, several at a time, and it'd run for about 1/2 hour. The only catch is that they did it over water. On land, you need a lot of space to do a show like that - and you'll probably need to talk to the fireworks company, too, since the local party supply stores won't have ones that are that big, or enough of them for a proper city-style spectacle."

The chop shop operator had no idea if MasterBlaster had been thinking of that big of a show, but he hoped so. After all, if he wanted to see an entire factory's worth go up, he surely liked giant displays. Now, it was a matter of whether or not he'd be willing to drop a few million Cubes to truly do it New York style but with Decepticon-sized fireworks.

[Vallermoore]

Afterlife, Pony Hell

Once in the afterlife the now ex Senator wasted no time acting like she was still in power, and that seriously offended some ponies. A tough looking mare with a revolver cutie mark on her flank showed up. In life, she had been a gangster, and her friends had laid a revolver beside her in her coffin which she had taken into the afterlife, giving her considerable power down there. "Apparently you forgot that this place is owned by Divine Leader Megatron." She levitated the gun out of a saddlebag with her magic from her horn. ""That means there are no laws against blowing that smile right off of your ugly mug. May your next destination be Hell."
As it turned out, Chuckleface was reborn in a cloning centre, and the nanny-bots knew about her quickly. Only five years later Chuckleface would be in effect reborn in her old ghostly body, in Pony Hell. Several Pony demons with nasty looking cutie marks grabbed her at once. "We've been waiting for you for a long time. It''s the graveyard for you." She was forced into a coffin that was nailed down, a demon gave a mock funeral oration and she was buried alive and left there in the dark, unable to breath once the oxygen wore out but unable to die.

Moon

Things were doing well, and the foals were proper Megatronists by the time a Decepticon in a pegasus body with a spanner as a cutie mark showed up. It turned out that their mission was a success and they could fly back to Cybertron leaving pony replacements, one of who was happy to be a Megatronist. When they flew up to Cybertron Loyal Star was very pleased to see the big ball bearing again, his home world, and Navigator was even more happy and longed for the touch of hard metal on his treads again. Biological planets with life often felt unpleasantly soft underfoot. As a former pony Loyal Star didn't mind the ground of biological worlds. Soon enough they entered the planet's atmosphere and decloaked and went to the First Temple, where they were met personally by a clearly pleased High Priest Warfire who said they needed a good clean. Loyal Star was pleased his body had not accidentally contaminated the Metal Planet. They had been away for so long that they would need to get used to Cybertron's unique culture again. After chatting about what happened on Moon, Loyal Star had not yet brought anywhere to live, so he was allowed to have a defrag and clean himself at the Temple.

Before heading to his vault, Loyal Star ran his Decepticon Culture Module, a module that was provided for free in every bot, as it was vital to their survival. He then arranged after viewing the large number of Cubes that he had to buy himself a small mansion in a very upper class area. Unlike MasterBlaster, who was very gaudy, he left the outside pretty plain, whilst the inside was decked out like a small and very opulent Decepticon Temple. There was a pulpit, a Megatron Face, a silver-plated statue of Megatron with ruby eyes, and a foil-paper Megatronist holy book, as well as a few other useful things like a non-sapient computer to run things on for safety, some fun games, and a nice bed with several pillows. He only had one more successful mission, and then full ordination waited for him. Fire Eater would be so proud of his former pony acolyte.

*****
MasterBlaster decided that he would give his friend a really good fireworks show to enjoy, a three million-Cube one. "For something that good, where should we set it up?" They went to a store selling fireworks that were big even by Decepticon standards. MasterBlaster was determined to give his friend a show that he would really enjoy. Vintage had helped him out and given good advice time and time again and had even invited him to stay a night in his house. So in MasterBlaster's mind boards he deserved a reward for being such a good friend. MasterBlaster asked the salesbot to point out some fun fireworks that would be worth buying.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

The store owner quickly came out from the back, smiling widely with open mouth, when he overheard MasterBlaster give his budget as 3 million Cubes. If he was human, he would have been pumping this customer's hand and getting it covered with sweat. As he was, he nodded and bowed excitedly and immediately started describing a grand show with hundreds and hundreds of smaller fireworks, leading up to a massive finale of the hugest ones produced.

"A show like this is best held in one of the blank areas of Cybertron. You know those places that have only a few shacks encroaching from the side? There are some kind of superweapon barrels under all of them, but that's only a problem if we're at war against some kind of powerful enemy. At other times, they're just there - unoccupied spaces that people generally use for impromptu airshows or raid games."

"Now even though the usual Decepticon way of doing things is to just go do them, it's a good idea to do things in a more official way for a show like this. People will wreck your show if they're already doing an airshow and your fireworks are suddenly in their faces and scorching their wings! All you'll need to do is go talk to the people in the nearby neighborhoods, along with anyone currently running an airshow. Do this several days in advance of your own show, so they have time to plan around it. And be sure to invite everybody to watch!! Shows like this are impossible to keep private, for one, but the main reason is to make sure you have plenty of goodwill. This will greatly lower the chance of interference."

"You should also contact all of the local fire department outposts, or else they might come and put out your show on you in order to 'be safe.' Let 'em all come and put their opinions in so you don't have to fight them and their anti-fire foam away from your area."

"Oh, and it goes without saying: If you have some kind of business, be sure to put plenty of billboards around in order to advertise it. I also suggest having at least one firework made that will explode into your business name." The salesbot assumed that of course someone who wanted to do something like this would have a business. Even with all of the raiding success over the last few years, few individuals were interested in putting on municipality-grade shows. If MasterBlaster took him up on that option, he'd have a good way to advertise his raid gang and possibly get new members, but he would have to be ready to deliver results right away if he did that. If he just wanted to have fun, it would be better for him to leave things unbranded.

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

Loyal Star's mansion was much more tasteful than MasterBlaster's, but from the outside, it was also uncharacteristically modest for Decepticon society. Ironically, this drew more interest than one done in a more Trumpish style, and it wasn't long before he found himself having to kick nosy neighbors off of his land.

Inside, the decor was a good replica of a Megatronist temple, with two exceptions: There was no bank of pews since he wouldn't be having worshipers coming into his house in great numbers, and the Face of Megatron didn't move. Motion-capable ones were only allowed in actual, consecrated Temples, where they were blessed and might sometimes show expressions sent by the Divine Leader himself. Loyal Star likely didn't know it, but this Face did have one thing in common with the official ones, and that was a DomIntel camera and bug in each eye. People who bought big Faces for their own homes were assumed to be either very loyal...or very traitorous and trying too hard to look loyal. DomIntel made sure the government soon knew exactly who was who.

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

One night, someone from a nearby area decided that he was going to see what this plain-looking, but large, house was hiding within it. Surely it had a lot of loot if its owner was trying so hard to look less than rich! The blue-and-red bot chuckled to himself as he glided down with his engine off and then switched to electrical power. "He can try to look middle-class all he wants, but only a rich bot can afford a place that big and would actually spend his money on it," he thought silently. Behind him, an electrically-powered glider cart came down and hovered, waiting to be loaded up with stolen property.

Quietly, the would-be robber approached one of the rear doors, which was in a location likely to end up unused by the homeowner. He looked at the lock's brand, and then slipped a small EMP device out of his forearm panel and placed it almost close enough to the lock to touch it, but didn't actually touch the lock in case there was some sort of contact alarm. Then, he pushed the button and sent a high-powered EMP blast right at the lock. As expected, the lock - being of a brand that thieves knew to be more vulnerable to EMP than the manufacturer stated - soon sent out a puff of smoke.

The thief now turned the door handle, which opened without resistance and without alarms. He turned on his night-vision capabilities and then silently made his way through the back room and into the hall, his thick purpose-built foam treads absorbing all impact and preventing sound. He passed the sound of Loyal Star's peacefully-idling engine; the homeowner was obviously defragging.

Soon, he found himself in the main room. To his shock, two big red eyes shone out at him with neutral brightness! As his eyes focused, he saw none other than Leader Megatron himself staring at him! If he hadn't been using his electrical engine, he would have surely backfired in shock and given himself away. Luckily for him, his system was currently incapable of making engine noise, and soon enough, he realized that he was looking at a 'civilian' replica of a Face of Megatron. Those are worth a decent amount of cash, he thought silently. He made his way over to the Face and quietly deployed a screwdriver attachment from a finger.

As he was bringing his screwdriver up to remove the Face, he caught sight of a big Decepticon from the corner of his eye. He whipped around, blasters in the ready position, only to see a life-sized Statue of Megatron standing there in silver glory. Not realizing that the Statue was only plated, he stopped what he had been doing and walked over to it. Its ruby eyes caught a bit of ambient light from outside, causing them to glint a bit. To the trespasser, it was like a promise of great wealth - almost like a wink from the Divine Leader himself. He put his arms around the Statue's waist, intending to spirit it off.

Suddenly, shrill alarms went off from the temple room. In an instant, the thief heard the clang of Loyal Star's feet hitting the bedroom floor. He would have mere moments to get away. He looked frantically for another exit, and spotted a door. Just as he jumped through it, he picked up the sight of the glowing, swirling paint of Assistant Priest stripes. The thief hoped that he hadn't been seen in return - and that he hadn't just jumped into some other kind of trouble (or a dead end) by going through that secondary door...