An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

Buzz quickly sensed that his latest opponent was built very well. All of his parts were new and his overall design was well-engineered, leaving no pre-existing weak spots to attack.

"I detect you have no inherent physical weaknesses," he said, surprising Lightning Dust, "so I'll just have to MAKE some!" With that, Buzz began to buzz at full force, sending millions of destructive shockwaves through Lightning Dust's internal shock absorption system. It wouldn't be long before something in that system would fail since this amounted to years' worth of mechanical shocks every few seconds.

Meanwhile, Lightning Dust, a former military computer, simply analyzed exactly what Buzz was doing. Once he had done so - taking plenty of hidden damage as he appeared to just stand there - he suddenly raised one double-strength blaster and took a careful, full-powered shot.

Buzz jumped to the side as soon as he saw the weapon get raised, but to his dismay, Lightning Dust had correctly calculated where he would jump to. As he landed, the blast connected squarely with the panel right outside of his buzzing apparatus. Lightning Dust kept the heat on, keeping up with Buzz's repeated dodging attempts and absorbing the return fire that Buzz was blasting him with. After a minute or so of this, his objective was accomplished: He overheated Buzz's buzzer and caused its little motor to seize.

Just when Lightning Dust figured that he had the win in the bag, Buzz surprised him by jumping on him and pounding the daylights out of him with his small but powerful fists. As Buzz expected, all of the buzzing he had been doing had added up to a tremendous amount of damage, and to Lightning Dust's dismay, his body quickly began to succumb to the brute-force bashing. First his smallest screws and rivets gave way, then his external weld lines went, and finally, the internals of his engine began to come apart. Once this happened, his engine stopped, and to his dismay, his electrical backup was also out of commission.

Once the engine noise was gone and Lightning Dust's eye lights dimmed a bit due to now running solely on battery power, Buzz slowly got up - keeping a blaster trained on his opponent in case he was only pretending to be nearly deactivated. After a couple of minutes, SolarTempest declared him the winner, satisfied that he had indeed gained the victory.

Though Buzz didn't say anything or look worried, inside he figured that the next battle would probably be his last. Without his buzzing ability, he was a relatively low-powered bot due to his scout's body. Still, both of his blasters were operational and he had a decent amount of armor for a scout, so he would not be a pushover. He was angry that he hadn't reached the upper echelons of the gang before this happened, and secretly vowed to upgrade and demand a re-ordering after a year or so.

~~~~~~~~~

ForIntel

With the figures in for the Guards Army and the Grey Hooves, ForIntel could make some serious plans. It decided to start with something relatively simple: The elimination of the Grey Hooves. They wouldn't try to replace them, but instead, find and assassinate them. Whenever one with a big mouth mark was detected, they'd be sure to leave his or her body - minus any camouflage for its mark - out in the open for everyone to see. This way, it would be quite plain that another force was there and at work. It would also let the general populace know that the Grey Hooves were wholly unable to stop this from happening.

The soldier count was also of high interest. Unless there was some other fighting force there, official or not, it would be a simple matter to just steamroll the entire planet. ForIntel had a somber air as it passed this intelligence on to the Decepticon Military; it was enjoying running such a giant infiltration project and didn't want the fun to end yet. Even so, it was its duty to pass on intel that would help in any potential military operation.

~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, 1,000 new ForIntel agents were deployed, all in fresh pony bodies with nondescript cutie marks. Along with them, 10 agents - all with at least 3 Military stints under their belts - were provided with pony bodies that had obvious, contrasting-colored Decepticon Seals. With Megatron's blessing, the 10 had been given simple assignments: Walk around openly, and kill anyone who tries to kill them. Their bodies were extra-armored, so they all went as muscled-up Earth ponies to cover for their extra weight.

The 1,000 agents would have far subtler work to do. They would blend with the populace, and when they detected a Grey Hoof, they would quietly dispatch him/her and then sneak the body into an area with high foot traffic to give the early risers grisly discoveries. The only limit was that they were to use methods that would leave the body recognizable rather than blasting it to a crisp.

~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria

Soon, a bound pony who had obviously been severely beaten was brought out and placed on an altar made of plain wood. His Decepticon Seal cutie mark had several slashes across it, some from a whip and others that looked like they were made with a knife. He still cursed and spat at his captors, his eyes showing hardness and determination.

The two agents could do nothing directly, lest they blow their covers, but they each sent a quick prayer to Megatron to make this "sacrifice" backfire on the officiating pony in some way. Not knowing the means with which the kill was supposed to be made, they couldn't be more specific, but they were sure that there was some means by which Megatron could make the guy sorry for trying to kill the Megatronist.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Lightning Dust had been defeated, but the former Vallermoorian military computer had put Buzz's main weapon, his buzzing ability, temporally out of action until he got it repaired or mind-transferred to another body with the same ability. The next bot to step forward had a built up body like a Scrounger that was also heavily armoured with extra plates of Decepticon armour, fluted armour at the joints, and triple strength blasters, as well as upgraded extra strong arms. His eyes were slightly dark; ever since the battle with the alicorns, he and Lightning Dust had been as close as MasterBlaster and Vintage were before MasterBlaster's death. "I'm SteelHard. Either I'll blast you to bits or pull you apart!" He started blasting as soon as the duel began. Whilst he didn't have Lightning Dust's targeting ability, his blasts if they hit could pierce all but the very strongest armours. If Buzz closed in to fight hand to hand he would have SteelHard's strengthened and reinforced arms to deal with. SolarTempest and the other bots looked on with interest. The new bot had three victories already and a fourth was at least possible.

ForIntel

Whilst the police/death squad count was very large, both the truly secret part of the police force and the military was, or at least appeared, small. Of course, some seemingly weak countries had secret weapons that could even destroy Decepticon bodies, or had pacts with far larger and more dangerous nations, just like certain bots or even biologicals. Before anti-changeling shielding was invented and made standard, fighting changeling swarms had drained many a bot of his rare love and sent him back to a spare or the Main Save Vault. Running into something nasty was best avoided even by Decepticons, hence, Forintel. The bots in government uncovered some links with other pony planets but it would take another day to see if these planets would dare stand up to the Decepticons for a frankly unpleasant pony regime.

Little Equestria

The group of Forintel wearing open Decepticon Seals didn't have to go far to encounter a police squad that tried to kill them, only to be blasted with covert blasters. More cops turned up, only to be blasted whilst causing only slight damage in return. A few other ponies with only knives and unicorn magic rallied to help the Forintel bots despite the danger-clearly they were Megatronists with fake cutie marks. One offered them, not knowing they were looking for fights, fake cutie marks and somewhere to hide. No ponies tried to help the cops who were clearly unpopular at least in that area. One Forintel bot impersonated a policeman and was able to uncover a big mouth pony. It didn't take much to get him to uncover fellow big mouth ponies, and soon such despicable pony narks as well as Grey Hooves were being murdered and left in the open. Those with big mouth marks had them exposed. The native Megatronists, whilst wary and not fully knowing what was happening, started joining in and doing what little they could to help, and there were more around then it seemed.

In the secret HQ of the cult, a unicorn raised his blade over the bound Megatronist to kill him when it all went dark for a moment as the lights went off and a bolt of lightning struck the unicorn's horn, destroying all his magic. When the lights went on the unicorn was wailing and crying like a baby at the loss of his magic, and the others untied the Megatronist and let him go as they knew he would not inform on them. For a unicorn, losing his magic was like a human loosing his fingers and thumbs-unlike Pegusai and earth ponies there were no suckers in their hooves to pick things up with. The cult members decided to go through with their latest attempt to become alicorns instead.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Little Equestria

Cult Headquarters

In the darkness and chaos that erupted when Megatron responded to his agents' prayers, the intended target was freed and quickly ran off. He had been a loyal follower before, and now, his faith was cemented with the mortar of both gratitude and direct proof. Even so, he would have to be careful - Megatron was not known as one to save someone over and over again. Such a direct blessing was rare and to be prized accordingly.

Inside the makeshift temple to Equestria's former gods, the cult followers decided to try to ascend to alicornhood themselves. However, when they approached the altar for this new ceremony, they were shocked to find that a big Decepticon Seal was now burned into its surface. The agents wondered if the ponies would accept Megatron's godhood now, or if they'd do the common biological thing and put it down as a "magic trick" rather than accept that they were not only wrong in their core worldview, but vastly outmatched.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Grey Hooves Headquarters

The leaders of the Grey Hooves were stern, but an air of panic filled the conference room they had gathered in. Reports of outright extermination of not only their agents, but their nark allies, were streaming in almost constantly today. Worse yet, it was happening in random places all over the planet. Even worse than that was the fact that their ponies were being left out in the open, so all in the affected cities were seeing the total ineffectiveness of the force. If this wasn't stopped soon, and the perpetrators publicly executed, the Grey Hooves would very quickly lose its fearsome reputation. On top of that, narks would become too afraid to inform on anyone, lest the ponies they turned in be connected to one of the killers and seek revenge.

"So far, all we know is that the assailants seem to be able to see right through our informants' camouflaged marks. Often, the fake mark is left right with the body, but put aside so that the big mouth mark is exposed. The means of execution vary. Some are garrotted, some have their throats cut, some are stabbed. A few have been shot." The top official told the others.

His second-in-command joined in. "That's not all that's been going on. We've noticed a distinct drop in policing ability in some of our key cities. At first, this seemed like it could be a normal fluctuation, but our statisticians have told me that it is too pointed to be a coincidence. Arrests and executions are rising, but as they do, discontent in these areas is spiking. Meanwhile, cases that make it to the prosecutor for court trials are starting to be summarily dismissed more and more often. It is my opinion that these local forces have been infiltrated."

Finally, a third officer spoke. "There's even more awful activity afoot. A group of ponies has been going around openly showing the robotic marks. They have been appearing in groups of two or three, and roaming through our most heavily-policed cities. Of course, the police foot patrols have attempted to administer due justice to these traitors. But in every case, the foot patrols get wiped out. Yet, these ponies don't appear to be connected to the other killers. When some undercover Grey Hooves pretended to be Megatronists offered them fake marks, the suspects simply, but politely, turned them down. They didn't seem to suspect that at least some of the 'Megatronists' who approached them were our agents. These killers claim to have the protection of Megatron himself and say that they have nothing to fear."

At this point, papers with details of what the agency believed were key incidents were passed around the room. While none could yet figure out who was behind it all, and many suspected that some nearby hostile planet was at fault, one thing was clear: Little Equestria was under attack.

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

Guards Army Headquarters

It had been quite some time since the Guards had been ordered to patrol the streets of its own planet, but it wasn't long before they got the call-up. Ten thousand troops were to go out in groups of three and supplement the police presence in all of the identified hot zones. Surely, the planet's government figured, they would be able to make short work of the murderers - whoever they were.

This figuring, needless to say, would only end up in soldiers being added to the ever-growing list of dead governmental operatives.

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

Cybertron
ForIntel Headquarters

Megatron, Soundwave, and the home base agents assigned to this project were all very satisfied with its progress. "Our agent in the Royal Guard reports that 10,000 troops have been activated to patrol," Soundwave stated. "We intend to simply deal with them the same way we've been taking care of the police. Meanwhile, our 'janitor' over at Grey Hooves Headquarters was able to overhear most of their officials' plans thanks to his sensitive audio circuits. We have also deployed two of our Machine Agents to take positions as key office equipment there. We've sent one who'll transform into a copier and one who'll become the conference room phone. Once they're in position, we can read and hear everything they do, and in real time."

Soundwave continued. "For now, we know that they realize that something big is up. They've also pinpointed our areas of operation. However, they have no idea that it is us. In fact, they suspect some podunk little planet that they've had some hostilities with in the past."

Megatron took all of this in before responding. "Your current plans are good. But send more 'office equipment' agents. I want some inside the halls of leadership there. We need to have a constant presence. While you have achieved infiltration, your current agents' covers require that they occasionally go home to 'sleep.' This is leaving a gap in the surveillance."

Megatron went on, "Your agents have also achieved infiltration into the cult. Unfortunately, that cult was about to kill a Megatronist, which would have made Megatronism - and therefore me - look weak in comparison to it. Therefore, I intervened and prevented that. However, my action will likely put the cult on edge. Send a Machine Agent to plant himself in their headquarters just in case your other two agents are declared suspect. They are very skilled, but they're also the new guys. If the cult experiences nothing but trouble from the time of their arrival, the logical thing to do will be to at least kick them out. They may even be 'killed.' However, since they have no Megatronist mark on them at all, their real cover shouldn't end up blown even if this happens. Just keep the signal path to the Save Vault open..."

With the information traded and the orders given, there was nothing else for the two to do yet besides monitor the action from the screens and decrypting radios of the project control room.

~~~~~~~~~~~

SolarTempest's Mansion

Buzz quickly dodged all of the blasts from SteelHard's initial salvo. The built-up bot found the small scout far harder to hit than he expected - Buzz's base form was built for agility since it was meant to dodge, rather than absorb, most firepower. Meanwhile, SteelHard's agility was hampered by the amount of armor he had to move in order to do anything. It was a fairly typical result of such a disparity between body types.

Despite this, Buzz had one big problem to figure out: How to damage this huge opponent. He decided on trying to attack under full cloaking, and in an instant, disappeared from view. SteelHard immediately switched to thermal detection, but to his dismay, Buzz soon faded from that detection system as well. Invisibly, Buzz smiled: His investment in an internal air conditioning-like system was paying off. That system had made his housing the same temperature as the outside air in mere seconds.

Now, he figured, was his chance. He sneaked ever closer to SteelHard, intending to jam a plate of field repair metal over his exhaust pipe and quickly weld it on with his blasters. If he succeeded, SteelHard's engine would choke on its own exhaust and shut down.

[Vallermoore]

SolarTempest's Mansion

It turned out that SteelHard was rather overconfident. Whilst thick heavy armour brought protection it also slowed things down a bit, just like with biologicals, and it was like a battleship against a smaller faster destroyer. His blasters could have punched through most armours on Cybertron, but even blasters of the strength that a High General used were useless if they could not hit what they were aiming at. Buzz then vanished from both normal camera-sight and thermal detection. Dodging SteelHard's random blasts, narrowly in one case, he snuck up really close, knelt, clamped a small armour strip on SteelHard's exhaust pipe and wielded it on, then quickly got away, causing SteelHard's engine to rapidly clog up and SteelHard to have to mind transfer quickly. SolarTempest clapped, and privately was pleased that he was leading a large syndicate instead of an average gang-otherwise the next bot Buzz would have been facing would have been him, with a chance of him losing control of his own gang, which would have been rather embarrassing. The next bot to step forward was one Claws, who reached into his panels when the fight started with claw tipped hands and began throwing human sized, and brightly coloured, magnets designed to stick to Decepticon steel unless it had been treated, as his hands and panels had been treated, not to stick. Whilst not explosive, these if they hit their target would render camouflage imperfect and provide somewhere to shoot at. Buzz would have to be careful and dodge them as he couldn't just buzz the magnets off his body and pulling them off even with Decepticon strength would be hard.

Guards Army Headquarters

Whilst the larger weapons of the Guards were a bit more dangerous against Decepticon sapient pony bodies, and a direct close range hit in the right place could *kill* the body, getting close enough was very hard and far more Guards were killed then their foes were packeted back to the Military Save Vault. There was talk of arming the general public to provide enough firepower to take down these "revolting Native Megatronists" but the generals had a problem. Their government was despised and heartily hated by many, maybe most, of their subjects. Death squads, banning apples except for a few days a year, and above all regimenting ponies excessively based on their cutie marks, had made them few friends. It was decided that if more then a third of the military were killed, and the police and secret police could not deal with the threat there was no option but to open the armouries to every pony. Of course, this was being read at Forintel HQ on Cybertron, who were ready to release genuine government misdeeds and sloth on the Little Equestria TV system once this point was reached-which would then spark a revolution with the local Megatronists leading it. A full scale invasion with the Decepticon Military might not even be needed.

Grey Hooves Headquarters

The Grey Hooves were seriously worried. Police officers, their own agents, and their big mouth informers were being slaughtered at a frightening rate, and the informers were being exposed in death. Surviving informers were mainly too scared to inform. Court cases both criminal and political were being abandoned.
"Are the Decepticons after us?" one asked. "Well, we have not been jumped on out of the sky by thousands of angry bots trying to kill or enslave us like happened to Beauty. Or Ugly as it is nicknamed now. This is likely a local rebellion of Megatronists perhaps helped by the nearby planet of Wintervahl. Why any pony would turn Megatronist willingly I have no idea. Even if Megatron is indeed divine, why would he help biologicals in any way, let alone the pony race? We have to do something to stop the murders of our informants and our agents alike."

Cult Headquarters

The Cult was horrified to find a large Decepticon Seal burned magically into their altar and started arguing with each other about it. Some thought Megatron might indeed be divine or at the least a powerful demon with Satanic level powers, who was displeased by the planned sacrifice of one of His worshippers. Others suspected the agents, who were posing as unicorns, of using pony magic to do it, and that they should at the least be thrown out of the cult headquarters as Megatronist traitors to ponykind if not killed outright. But they didn't seem that willing to outright try and kill the agents because of the sheer magical powers they appeared to have.

[Victorious Decepticons]

SolarTempest's Mansion

As soon as Claws opened his panels, he had a good idea of where to aim because Buzz started to blast his panel doors! This caused some of them to slam shut before Claws could get his latch control commands through, so the latches were bent with the force. These panels would now have to either be left to swing open or consciously kept under tension.

Claws, however, was not deterred by this slightly unfortunate situation. As soon as he got a bead on Buzz's location, he whipped the magnets at him. Since Buzz was busy blasting, he failed to dodge two of the things and they stuck hard. It now looked as if two brightly-colored objects were floating in the air. Buzz kept his cloaking on anyway because he knew that by doing so, he would keep Claws from knowing which parts of his body the magnets were on. Soon, he stopped firing with one arm and used that one to start trying to yank the unwanted baggage off. With his other arm, he kept up his attack so that Claws would still have to pay attention to defense.

~~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria
Coroner's Office

It was fairly unusual for the bodies of those killed by law enforcement or troops to be brought here, but after the amount of trouble it took to take out even one of the obvious Megatronists, the government decided to try to figure out if there was something physically different about them.

"We think they're using some kind of drug to augment themselves," the leader of the Guards Army squad said to the coroner. "Perhaps steroids, or even PCP. We had to hit this one point blank with a rocket to get the job done, and his pals wiped a lot of us out during the fight." The two looked down at the gory body, and the coroner took in the scene. He immediately noticed one thing strange about it: The gray rib that was showing through the burnt, hamburgerized meat. This rib didn't seem to have been burnt by the rocket, but instead, appeared to be made of something other than bone.

"I think you might be dealing with something a bit more advanced than that," said the coroner, "but give me a few days to do an autopsy. I don't want to say anything until I've had a proper look..."

Though the coroner wouldn't commit to a faster time, he actually got started on the autopsy as soon as the Guards Army captain left. With a few deft slices, he removed the cooked, gory area and plopped it into a big bin. Then, he could see the ribcage - and, what was under it.

He was looking at an engine.

It was heavily damaged, with a rather large hole blasted into it by the army's rocket, but there was no mistaking what it was. The coroner soon found the crankshaft and transmission, and by cutting away more of the biological tissue, was able to see how it changed from a straight rod to an articulated one to allow for some motion in the "spine" of the body. Then, he saw that it actually forked into four separate shafts, each one going down a leg, to provide power to smaller motors in the limbs. These motors turned out to be hydraulic pumps. This, the coroner figured, would account for the superpony strength that had been reported. He looked further, and was impressed by the sets of gears and servos at each joint and the belt-driven pulley systems that allowed for fine motion.

Alas, while he was able to get the general idea of how the system was built, he did not get to examine the body closely enough to truly reverse-engineer it. Tubes running throughout the system, which he had so far overlooked, suddenly began to glow - first red hot, and then white hot. In mere seconds, the mechanical parts were melted into a nearly uniform pool of liquid metal, and the meat was cooked to ash.

No standard Decepticon bodies, civilian or military, were made with self-destruct systems. Intelligence androids, however, were neither of these. The Division knew that there was a far higher chance of a comparatively weak android being taken out than there would be for another type of form - and that the ones made to seem the most natural were the weakest of all. Therefore, it routinely outfitted them with self-destruct capabilities that could be activated if it seemed that reverse engineering was imminent or if the command was sent through from Cybertron. Thanks to the coroner's deep dissection, this feature was automatically triggered in the body on his table.

Of course, when molten metal contacts something like flooring, it doesn't just sit there looking pretty. Almost immediately, the wooden subflooring ignited into a raging fire. The coroner was forced to flee his office for his life, and substantial damage was done before the fire department arrived and put out the blaze.

Despite these events, the coroner was able to provide some crucial information to the Guards Army captain: The "Megatronist pony" was a machine.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Grey Hooves

If the Little Equestrian Army worked like Cybertron's, the crucial autopsy information would have been told directly to the leader and then disseminated to agencies like the Grey Hooves almost immediately. Unfortunately for this planet, it did not work this way. Instead, it worked in the more traditional fashion, and the report obtained by the relatively lowly Guards Army captain would have to travel up through several ranks before it reached anyone with real authority, let alone got passed through the rest of the government's agencies. For now, the Grey Hooves didn't even know that the report existed, and it did not connect the fire at the Coroner's Office with anything special either.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cult Headquarters

After some arguing, the cult decided that the new arrivals couldn't have caused the lightning or burned the Seal into their altar. The new ponies, they reasoned, hadn't had any lightning coming from their horns like it would if they did the magic. They also hadn't appeared to be concentrating during any of the unexpected events.

The two didn't break their acts at all, but inside, they were secretly relieved. However, they were also a bit miffed that these cultists thought of Megatron's powers as being "Satanic" in intensity. Megatron had always said that Satan was "nothing but a rebel loser peasant not even fit for the slag pit," so such comparisons were highly unwelcome. Despite this, they knew that many nations who had been on the wrong side of the Decepticons thought of them as being devils instead of gods.

After some discussion, the cult decided to go ahead with the attempt at ascension. However, they first wanted to fix their altar, which they referred to as being "desecrated" by the Decepticon Seal. This would require obtaining and finishing a new wooden top. They decided to wait three days before doing the ascension ritual so that one of them - a unicorn who was a skilled woodworker - could produce this new part.

[Vallermoore]

SolarTempest's Mansion

Both Claws and Buzz would take quite a bit of damage before Buzz was able to wrench off the magnets and deleiver a blast through an open panel that blasted a key piece of Claw's body, forcing him to drop out. Buzz's body also was on the verge of falling apart from all the many fights he had fought and won, but he had beaten yet another challenger and was certainly no FNG. SolarTempest himself clapped Buzz. Bots could clap their hands together without damage as they could feel and so would not clap too hard. Things that might be acceptable at certain times and places amongst biologicals-back slapping, hugging, handshakes and the like were not done however for fear of causing dents. The next bot to step forward called himself Starlight and wore a paint that meant he had to drink slightly less Energon for then most bots. Recently (which was why he was not at a higher rank) he had brought a couple of fusion cannons which, unusually, were held in the hand like firearms were held by biologicals rather then being wired into the body. There was likely to be quite a lot of kick with these weapons, so the aim would be questionable, but one blast in the right area would totally punch through Buzz's body even if it had been undamaged, and by now Buzz's body could not take much more punishment. SolarTempest warned Starlight lightly but seriously "If you accidently blast through my mansion walls with those things and don't pay for the damage, you and I are going to fall out, and you don't want me-and the others-on your case."

Little Equestria, Coroner's Office

The coroner was shocked by what he found; an engine, motors and other such things. This was no pony. This, given the seal, was a Decepticon body. Before he could fully check it out, it ignited. Intelligence androids of Forintel were designed not to fall into enemy hands. Soon his office was blazing and he had to flee and call the fire brigade. On Cybertron with news of this sort, contacting bots of high rank was both easy and insisted on, but the report would have to go through ten people, from the local captain and the Head Coroner all the way up to the pony leader widely derided behind his back as the False Alicorn, taking several days to do so.

Cult Headquarters

The two Forintel agents were convinced that the spell would not work, but even if it did, a single alicorn might be dangerous but at worst, a High General or Megatron himself could deal with that if a full invasion was necessary. Alicorns were the only ponies that Decepticons had to be wary of, but that just meant that one had to treat them like fighting another Decepticon instead of fighting a tiny biological.

[Victorious Decepticons]

SolarTempest's Mansion

In response to SolarTempest's warning, the two combatants moved so that they would be shooting across the backyard without the house being behind either of them. This, however, was the only pause. As soon as they were in position, Starlight whipped his fusion guns upwards, cowboy-style, to begin firing. Before he could get a shot off, though, he learned exactly why Decepticons disdained hand-held weaponry. Buzz quickly shot one of the cannon-guns out of Starlight's hand, and Starlight had to move fast to retain control of the other one.

Despite the initial misfortune, Starlight quickly recovered and began firing away, putting several holes into - but not through - the blast-containment wall that had been erected around the yard for the duel series. This wall helped to ensure that no neighbors would accidentally get themselves or their houses blasted, and therefore, helped to prevent any cause to seek retribution. Now, thanks to Buzz's excellent dodging, it was put to full use.

For a few minutes, it seemed as if the match might be a near-stalemate. Buzz dodged well, while Starlight got hit a couple of times but seemed to be handling the damage well. The two kept circling each other, and at times, Starlight was indeed in a position that sent some of his blasts right into SolarTempest's mansion wall. By this time, his other fusion gun had been forgotten about by both combatants, but it was still there on the ground. This fact eventually came up in the bad way for Buzz.

Buzz, concentrating on avoiding fire, was totally unprepared when his foot stomped down on the strong, round, metal barrel of the lost fusion gun. For just a moment, he was slightly distracted as he compensated for the unexpected protrusion and needed balancing.

In that moment, his position in the gang was set. He would be above Claws, but below Starlight, until there was another match. Starlight stood over his opponent's holed body and raised his hands in victory as smoke poured from Buzz's engine compartment. Even though Buzz could have activated his electrical engine, he now didn't have the power needed to continue the fighting. He had no choice but to stay down for now and accept defeat, at least unless he wanted to be blasted into absolute non-functionality.

Later, he would return in a new body to retrieve this one and take it to his favorite foundry.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Foreign Intelligence Headquarters

The command room was filled with tension as Soundwave and the ForIntel lieutenants watched the report come in. Security had been compromised. The open Decepticon "pony" unit had lost two members to military fire, and one of the bodies had been taken. The fire at the coroners, the spies on Little Equestria reported, was surely related. Their covers were to be assumed blown, and they now awaited new orders.

ForIntel already knew of the two's defeat since they had arrived at the Intelligence Save Vault sans their forms, but now, they were aware of the severity of the news. Several of the lieutenant commanders groaned upon getting the report. Soundwave, on the other hand, did not seem too bothered.

"Marked agents are always at high risk of discovery. People get suspicious when they see our Seal, especially when our agents are performing feats above normal biological capacity," he reminded everyone present. "However, that does not compromise the overall mission. Most of our agents are working under full cover, and will continue to do so as normal. Only major surgery, or in that agent's case, autopsy, can reveal their machine nature. And a foreign country isn't going to do that to someone who has a chance of being a regular citizen, at least not just to check his species."

Soundwave looked up at the screen, but continued talking. "The remaining open anti-police units will be going undercover now. They are to install counterfeit cutie marks and blend into the population. Then, they will be making themselves yet more fake cutie marks. Once that's done, they can go back out as a hostile force, eliminate more government personnel, and then change their marks to their even newer ones to avoid detection after escaping the scene. That will get the government even more on edge. When this happens, especially in hated dictatorships like that one, the ruler will often become far harsher - and better yet, start purges of his closest personnel. Needless to say, this just destabilizes his government further as people start to be killed for nothing." Soundwave chuckled with some self-satisfaction at his plans.

"I am making another order for that unit. I shall requisition two elite-level troops from the Military to augment it. The next time the Guards Army meets this unit, they will be in for a full-powered and militarily-trained response."

Soundwave paused for several moments as he read the other reports that had come in. Then, his eyes brightened significantly.

"Our reports indicate that the coroner's report has only gone up one level beyond the captain. Comms surveillance says that it is now in the major's office, and no further commentary has been detected. This will make things even easier for us." The spymaster turned to one of his lieutenants. "Get rid of that report. Have an agent sneak in and steal it by pure stealth if possible, but if it isn't, create a distraction. Lighting the building on fire would be enough to force an evacuation and give us a massive security gap for the few minutes it'd take to swipe a piece of paper. Be sure to have this agent use a body that can handle the flames, and that has visual cloaking so it's not obvious where he came from!"

After getting a strong but perfunctory "yes sir," the spymaster continued to read the incoming reports. His operations in the police were working well, but Little Equestria was getting suspicious and was figuring that there had been infiltrations. Soundwave decided that it was time to shift out his current agents, who would now slowly begin resigning or getting themselves fired, and replace them with the new ones that were already in position and ranked to take over their jobs.

Next, he saw a report from the cult team. They reported that the others were going to attempt an alicorn ascension ceremony. Soundwave laughed at this, and sent a coded message: "The gods of Equestria are dead, so there are no divinities both willing and able to raise those wannabes to a higher level. Be sure to contain your laughter and smirks when the ceremony doesn't work!"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cult Headquarters

The two spies here soon received the coded message via their internal radios, but didn't even give each other sideways glances. Instead, they sat with reverent postures, just like the real cultists, as the ritual began. They knew that with no Equestrian gods to power the change the cultists sought, nothing legitimate could happen. As ordered, they activated their freeze-face programs so they could respond as their covers demanded when the lack of alicornness became obvious to everyone.

In the Little Equestrian Population

By now, everyone knew that something huge was ahoof. Arrests were way down as the murders of big mouths reached the triple digits. People were no longer surprised by the grisly sight of yet another slaughtered nark in the street. Instead, they began to realize, the narks and Grey Hooves had some very powerful enemies. The people were swarming with speculations ranging from domestic organized crime gangs to invasions from all sorts of suspect planets. Almost none, however, thought that the Decepticons were really behind it even though many of the bodies were accompanied by Megatronist symbols.

As this went on, the population began to split into two loosely-defined camps: Those who were terrified by the obvious breakdown of the usual order (mainly due to fearing that they might get killed in any upcoming fighting), and those who welcomed it. Of the latter group, a few began to use the now-widening gaps in government security to start smuggling in arms...

[Vallermoore]

SolarTempest's Mansion

Both bots did move slightly, as they could see why SolarTempest would be justifiably angry if he got his mansion busted up with fusion fire. The ensuing fight was impressive, and Starlight had one of his fusion pistols blasted from his hands, but because Buzz had taken so much damage earlier, it ended up being Starlight who was ultimately the victor. Buzz had shown however that he was no FNG, and SolarTempest walked over. "Congratulations, Buzz, you have well and truly demonstrated your fight ability and am certainly not the lowest in this gang. You will no doubt get a credit to it, but you need to either transfer to a spare or get that body fixed at once, as it's taken a lot of punishment. For the moment, we don't need to do more raids as all our vaults are pretty full of Energon, although if any of you bots want to go on a raid with Buzz-if his vaults are not as full, feel free to do so. When the Cybertronian Business Association is one day one of the biggest and best syndicates on Cybertron, Buzz, you will no doubt be an officer within it with plenty of bots under you." His eyes were a warm redness of approval. Buzz had proved himself.

Elsewhere on Cybertron

A strong and impressive looking bot went to a paint shop and paid for a paint job that was the same as SolarTempest, and then went to Blaze's Blasters to buy some double strength blasters. He had done a raid or two on a planet that had relatively low tech to gain the Energon for it. It would take time before rumours of this double would reach SolarTempest's ears.

As Buzz walked up Spark Street, named that because of the large number of foundries along it, he heard another bot talking to his friend. "I've been offered the chance to join a brand new chapter of the Cybertronian Business Association by SolarTempest himself not long ago. He's advertising for new bots at the other end of this street!" When he joined the gang, SolarTempest had given Buzz his number and permission to use it in an emergency. He radioed SolarTempest. "SolarTempest-if you are still in your mansion-then you will really need this information. Some unknown bot is going under your name, and trying to recruit what he claims to be a new chapter of the Cybertronian Business Association at the far end of Spark Street."

Foreign Intelligence Headquarters

Given that the agents were openly flying the Decepticon Seal and were in effect only partly undercover, and were directly engaged in battle, it was not that surprising that one would be uncovered sooner or later. Orders went out to slip fully undercover under false cutie marks that gave no clue to their Decepticon nature. Once this had been done, the war on the pony military, police, secret police and the hated narks would resume. With so many nark ponies either dead or too scared to talk, it was harder and harder for the rulers to know what was happening or even to secure their borders. Megatronist ponies and others with a hatred of the government started to smuggle guns in from countries with less strict gun laws then theirs in increasing numbers, and the chance of a rebellion started to increase with each day of this. Reports (true ones in this case) of the corruption of the Little Equestrian government were broadcast in, making said government even more unpopular then it was already. Soon just the equvilent of a spark would be needed to make the whole country erupt, and the Megatronists would be in pole position even without direct help from the Decepticons to shift things in a Megatronist direction.

Cult Headquarters

Before the defeat of the alicorns, the spell might indeed have worked (although that would have brought the other alicorns down hard like an Alicorn Asset Protection Force to deal with the unwanted and unasked for upstart rebels by blasting them with deadly pony magic.) Now it was like trying to make a dead battery come to life. After the spell failed, the disappointed cultists started talking to see if they could take advantage of the soon to be rebellion and erupt like the pony equivalent of ISIS.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertronian Business Association

As soon as SolarTempest got Buzz's message, he got his gang into action. Everyone who had mind-transferred away was called to the location Buzz gave, while the others got into formation to immediately fly to what would soon be a battle zone. As a unit, the entire group of bots present took off into the sky, transforming after jumping up from the ground. Down below, a neighbor gave a little wave, assuming that they were on their way to some glorious raid.

Only a couple of minutes later, they arrived at the foot of Spark Street and saw the imposter. Without any warning or hesitation, they began to strafe him and those who seemed to be with him. Their engines roared angrily as they made their passes, and the nearby foundries closed their blast shades and doors knowing that this could only mean war. One foundry quickly lit up a sign, usually illuminated only at night, that emphasized how much it paid for whole-body scrap.

FakeSolarTempest quickly aimed his blasters at the sky and began firing after taking a few shots to the top of his wings. The new recruits, on the other hand, scattered in all directions without hesitation. They could clearly see that the actual CBA was the group in the air thanks to both their obvious hostility and their numbers, and they had no intentions of getting deactivated to try to defend some wannabe. This left FakeSolarTempest on his own against the entire CBA, which was now being joined by those who had transferred to their new bodies. Buzz himself would come soon, but since he decided to walk his damaged form home, it would take him a while to arrive. By then, the battle was likely to be over.

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

Cult Headquarters

The agents were a bit surprised when the cult remained loyal to its dead gods even after their alicorn ascension ceremony didn't work. They silently noted that these biologicals had to be especially glitched. Inside, their logic routines nearly howled in protest as the agents had to refrain from pointing out the illogic on display before them.

Despite this, the agents did not yet break cover. While they knew where the cult's headquarters were thanks to being right there, they hadn't yet discovered the locations of all of the little cells it controlled. Without that information, the Decepticons wouldn't be able to successfully raid the cult unless it took over the entire planet. They knew that it was unlikely that all of the needed information would be mentioned in the open, but they hoped that somewhere - either in this building or at one under the control of the cult leader - there would be some sort of code book or other written record that they could steal. Of course, any theft would be done under cloaking.

Later, after the meeting ended, the two agents went to what looked like separate apartments. Soon, though, they cloaked up and met each other in a hidden area. There, they made plans to stealthily break back into the headquarters building - under cloaking, of course - and search its offices. They also took some other steps to ensure that their covers wouldn't be blown even if they were caught red-hooved. They put on ForIntel-grade costumes with differently-colored hair and different cutie marks, and adjusted their voice chips to sound like completely different ponies. This way, they could pretend to be just regular thieves if they were somehow detected.

That night, they set off for the now-closed headquarters, which was in a building that most ponies thought had been abandoned.

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

Guards Army Base

It was quite a surprise when the building housing the offices of the base's various officers suddenly went up with a bang. The explosion, which would later be determined to be caused by a "faulty gas line," wasn't that big in itself. However, it quickly lit a blaze that began to rip through the ground floor, forcing everyone inside to evacuate out the back at full speed. The fire soon roared up the stairs and elevator shafts, and it was clear that the second story would soon be lit up as well.

As this was going on, an invisible "pegasus pony" flew in through the second-story window of the relevant major's office. Outside that office's door, flames threatened to burn their way through. The pony quickly fired off a tiny EMP pulse - just enough to deactivate the cameras in that one office - before searching the major's desk. In just a couple of moments, a manila folder seemed to levitate a bit before disappearing into the pony's cloaking field.

By the time the base fire department got the fire out, nothing was left of the papers on and in the major's desk. Thanks to the chaos, the folder's very existence was soon forgotten. The captain would never know that his report had been made off with, and would likely just assume that it was either lost or dismissed somewhere within the bureaucratic morass of the Guards Army.

In an alley far, far away from the Guards Army base, a pegusus "pony" who appeared to be a bum warmed his front hooves over a fire fueled by a manila envelope and the papers within. Once the fire went out, he made sure it would stay that way by stomping on the ashes and obliterating any trace of the words on those papers before he "dejectedly" walked away in the manner of someone who has recently been made destitute.

ForIntel's security-breach damage control was now done for these agents. No one would ever know what the coroner found except for that captain and the coroner himself, and their time in this world would turn out to be short. Other agents would be making sure of that...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Grey Hooves Headquarters

Many of this agency's personnel were now listed as KIA, and several others had been pulled back and redeployed elsewhere in order to try to increase operational security. Unfortunately for the Grey Hooves, the new secure phone that had been ordered and delivered was anything but secure, and the same was true of the new super-secure computer the head office had brought in. This caused the GH to talk more freely over these innocent-looking instruments and store more-sensitive documents on them, when in reality, they should have been throwing them both into a metal crusher. Needless to say, Decepticon Foreign Intelligence immediately knew exactly who to deactivate next, and ironically, the redeployment let the robotic agency learn about more agents than it had known about before.

In the command room of the Grey Hooves, tense voices relayed the latest information. Several police chiefs had been fired and replaced, and operational changes made, yet there had been no net improvement in their efficacy or their reputations - reputations that were currently headed toward the sewer as if going down a warped water slide. Meanwhile, a few smuggling boats had been intercepted by the Coastal Guards Army, but instead of being filled with the usual apples and fine mane brushes, they had weapons. Ominously, it was believed that only a few of the smuggling boats had been busted, and that in the absence of an effective informant network, many more were coming in.

A new report, however, was getting most of the attention. Grey Hooves agents had discovered a cult operating that intended to change into a terrorist network. So far they had only uncovered a small cell of 3 ponies, and these were now under "extreme interrogation" at the nation's most secure prison. The interrogation, as of now, had yielded just one piece of information: That the cult's headquarters was rumored to be located in what appeared to be an abandoned building in a particular city. With nothing more to go on, the pony agency deployed some new agents to the area in hopes of infiltrating it.

Finally, after some tense discussion, the group made the decision to inform the nation's ruler of the situation. It was clear that rebellion could break out at any time, and he had to be warned of the danger.

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

Arfon
First Temple of Megatron

Loyal Star had just concluded a sermon before a full house when he noticed a small, but overt, ForIntel agent waiting off to the side of the stage area. When the service ended, the priest quickly walked over to him, and the two went into the study.

"We have not yet informed the wider Temple of what is going on," the agent quickly told Loyal Star, "because the operation is still highly classified. However, it is likely that we are about to gain the ability to operate openly on a planet that is, at this time, extremely hostile to us. Its social order is quickly breaking down thanks to one of the biggest Foreign Intelligence operations in the history of Cybertron." The agent was clearly VERY proud of this accomplishment.

"You are to await official Temple orders before announcing anything, but I have been ordered to inform you that you have been selected to bring the official form of Megatronism to this place. Little Equestria." The agent now showed a holographic projection of an intergalactic map and slowly zoomed in so that the target planet's exact location was easy to understand. It was very far from Arfon, and Loyal Star knew why he was being told about it in advance when he saw that. He would have to add a spare fuel tank, and of course get the Energon to fill it, in order to fly to this next world.

"I have also brought information on how Little Equestria's First Temple will need to be built. It'll be an anarchic warzone when you get deployed, with only the official war having ended. Therefore, you need to make it in full fortress style - and get it up before anyone realizes what it is. Build the shell first, and then erect a facade that actually leaves room for plenty of workers between it and the real wall behind it. Make the facade look like all of the other buildings around it. Then, behind it, install the features that distinguish it as a Megatronist Temple. Leave the inside for last, so if it gets discovered and bombed before it's secure, you don't lose anything too valuable."

Loyal Star listened and nodded. It would be much different from Arfon, it seemed. Even though Arfon had a war, the majority of the people were clearly on Megatron's side and welcomed the Temple.

"I take it there are a lot of heathens on this new planet?" He asked.

"Little Equestria has had Ponyism forced on it by its leader, and even without that, it had been a Ponyist planet before the war against the alicorns," the agent explained. "Thanks to the heavy-handedness of its leader, however, goodwill toward that religion has plummeted. A few people - maybe 5% - have even turned to Megatronism. However, most still think of us as the enemy, and are likely to find sudden faith in their old religion once we show up. You will have to bring our religion to most of them by blaster point. Yet, our analysis shows that immediate forced attendance at the Temples and other such laws will only remind them of their old leader and spark even more rebellion."

The agent proceeded to explain the general situation on Little Equestria, such as the lack of luxury goods, rigidly pre-determined societal positions, and the once-ubiquitous bands of roving government killers. "When you and the already-present Megatronists take over, your first job will be to convince the others of both the true Decepticon Way and to get them to work under you to alleviate these conditions. Then, once you have some goodwill built up through the provision of lots of apples and a lack of cutie-mark-based social determinism, then you insist that everyone learn the true version of both Megatronism and the Decepticon Way. Use the schools, rather than your temples, for this education. Only after everyone knows the truth - as opposed to the rot their old government has spewed about us - should you mandate Temple attendance. You WILL have to mandate it. Just not yet."

Loyal Star nodded gravely. The plan seemed sound, though like any plans, would likely need to be tweaked as situations demanded. He was both excited to get this appointment and quite nervous. This would be the first time he would be entering a war zone in which the general population would be outright hostile to his presence.

For now, though, he would be staying on Arfon. There, along with administering the ever-growing network of Megatronist Temples (which now numbered over 1,000), he would be collecting the materials he would need for his next deployment. By getting them here, he would be able to avoid the problem of lack of availability that normally plagued areas where hot wars had just barely ended.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertronian Business Association

SolarTempest did not hesitate for a second, and summoned the whole Association-over twenty bots-with the news. He didn't really even have to tell them what to do next. This faux SolarTempest would have to be dealt with using the Decepticon Way, before he could get a real gang together that might become a real threat. Just because there was no such thing as formal copyright, didn't meant that a bot could get away with impersonating another one. On some planets and under some circumstances, it might be seen as a compliment, but on Cybertron most certainly not. Another Decepticon doing an impersonation like this could only mean at best a scam and at worst the bot trying to quietly assassinate the real one and take over. When the real Association with SolarTempest at their head flew up and started both cursing out and strafing the fake, his would be gang members scattered like cockroaches when exposed to the light. The CBA took a few blasts, before two who had cloaked themselves grabbed the false bot from behind and SolarTempest turned on his jammer and landed and transformed. Just destroying this bot's body, SolarTempest had decided, or even killing him outright, would not be enough. Something would have to be done to show to any other would be imitators that impersonating SolarTempest was a really stupid thing to do. He opened a panel and took out a slave chip and the other bot began to beg for mercy as soon as he saw it.

"I don't mind Decepticons being Decepticons-cons like yours are part of life on Cybertron. But I do mind it when I and my gang are dragged into them by a would be changeling like you. Perhaps you planned to kill me and take over. I'm not going to kill you, I'm going to enslave you and sell you to Megatron Metals Mine #1." The protesting bot took four bots to hold him still whilst SolarTempest held the slave chip up to one of his ports and soon enough it had done it's thing. Under normal circumstances, publically enslaving a bot like this might well bring vigilantes, but the nearby bots had seen what this one had done and knew he was no innocent victim being grabbed by hackers. Soon enough the begging died away and SolarTempest could turn off his jammer, his foe reduced to a helpless silent slave. Soon enough the CBA and their victim flew to Decepticon Earth and the infamous mine, careful not to get too close to Overseer. They were many, but Overseer was undead, his body almost impossible to kill, and would happily enslave them too given the chance. Even High Generals were careful around Overseer.

*****

Cult Headquarters

Only a couple of rather bored cult members who were unicorns and had black market pistols were guarding the place. Pony magic tended to be weak against undamaged bots like the agents, but if it could get in through a wound, it could potentially fry a bot's insides as Loyal Star had found, so the pony guards were not totally weak. Grey Hooves were also converging on the scene unknown to the agents.

Grey Hooves Headquarters

The Grey Hooves recommended that the leader, a pony who called himself King Sombra, barricade himself in his main residence with the few armed troops and loyalists who would still fight for him, and promise the legalisation of apples. This Sombra did, announcing it on TV. Unfortunately there were not anywhere near enough apples to go around and the price shot up, placing the apples out of reach for most ponies whilst tormenting them with the sight of the tasty treats and making himself even more unpopular. What could have taken the sting out of things in at least the short term just ended up making it much worse.

Arfon
First Temple of Megatron

Loyal Star was happy to get the news, and flew to Cybertron to his vaults, where he got extra fuel tanks and a little extra armour added. Here the population would not be happy to see him and some might even try assassination attempts if they had anything that could harm him. Given pony magic, any wound that made a small crack in his Faraday Cage could lead to him losing a body which would embarrass him and embolden the foe. He doubted they had a way to crack his Cage, but he would have to be watchful at least at first. He was strong, but that didn't mean that no biologicals could do damage to him. Being utterly overconfident was a good way to end up as a stream of data packets pinging back to a spare body on Cybertron. He would not travel at once to the planet as it meant he would end up in an active warzone with a possible SAM in his future if he did that. He decided to use a combination of his own ways and those of Jackboots. Force alone would not work properly and would just make the ponies flee in terror, and just being nice would not work either as there were many Ponyists present. Between them though he should have the tools to do the job.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron Metals Mine #1

Overseer's guards instantly spotted the docile, drone-like behavior of the captive and came over to the group. At first, they seemed like normal mine guards: Strong and thuggish, yet not too eager to fight against anyone who actually stood a chance. However, upon closer inspection, it was clear that they had some unattended rust spots that didn't seem to make them at all uncomfortable. Their eyes were also dim, not with anger, but with a strange lack of liveliness. It was then that SolarTempest realized that these bots were as undead as their boss, though they may or may not have also been soulless.

"We see you have a new worker for us. Usually we only do business with the Slave Market because so many want to dump their enemies here, but since it's a robotic one, we'll make an exception." The entrance guard looked pointedly at the captive. "A robotic body like yours will run for decades with no maintenance once we zombify it." He turned back to SolarTempest and said, "I'll get the boss, and then you can negotiate your price."

Before long, Overseer himself emerged from the main entrance. His current paint job was hidden by a fairly thick layer of mine dust, but some midnight blue was visible along with a stripe made of several yellow lightning bolts in a row. His eyes, unlike those of his guards, were bright. He came over to the group quickly, covering the distance much faster than they had expected, and immediately started inspecting the proposed new equipment.

Overseer was always happy to get someone else to zombify and enslave, especially when that someone was a full-fledged Decepticon robot. It would make his mine even more productive, and with no soul, he had no urge to care about the new slave's certain suffering. Everything ran through his logic circuits save for the few emotions that served the objective he had set for himself prior to his deletion of his soul. One of these was the joy of getting a new piece of strong, robotic equipment.

"Ah, fresh metal!" Overseer said in a way that the captive perceived as very ominous, as he looked at the captive much like a cannibal would look at someone who seemed especially succulent. "And it's one of this year's models! An Augmented and Modded Decepticon Parts Luxury Raider 15900S with the Load Hauling Upgrade, correct?" He looked at SolarTempest, who was clearly running the same make and model, for confirmation. "That's a fine piece of equipment! I'll give you 500,000 Cubes for it."

The price wasn't as much as a new body would cost, but it was 5x higher than would be paid for someone who just had a standard model without upgrades. It was quite good for a slave, even a Decepticon one.

Once the deal was done and control was transferred to Overseer, the mine boss opened up the panels of his new head of metalstock. He then extracted a cylinder of dust from his own panel and proceeded to sprinkle it liberally among all of the captive's parts, making sure to give every single piece a light coating.

Then, he ordered the captive to stand away from the others, stepped back, and took aim with both of his blasters. The captive could do nothing to stop what he figured was certain doom, and with his panels open, he figured his death would be quick. He couldn't mind-transfer thanks to the enslavement virus.

In only a few seconds, the critical parts of the captive's mind-boards had been destroyed along with the fuel pump that served his engine. The body clanged to the ground as if completely deactivated.

Less than a minute later, Overseer had his newest zombie slave. The body rose again, its eyes now dark. The mine operator walked over, got out a new fuel pump, and put it in, allowing the slave's engine to resume regular functioning. Then he shut the zombie's panels and ordered it into the mine. It obeyed despite its mind-boards still being burned; Overseer hadn't destroyed the parts needed to understand orders. The copper trace attached to the connector for the hidden personality chip, on the other hand, was charred.

"Any time you have more stock like that, just come back," Overseer called over his shoulder as he followed his new property down into the depths.

~~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria
Cult Headquarters

Rather than engage the guards directly, the two cloaked Decepticon agents threw a few rocks against the back of the building. One of the guards went to investigate, while the other immediately turned all of his attention to where he had heard the sound. In a split second, the agents had sneaked through the door.

Inside, they quickly went to the office area and began searching. Eventually, they reached the cult leader's office and saw a large safe. They looked at it, but decided not to bother cracking it. It was unlikely that this safe would have anything but money or expensive ceremonial tools in it, and while a regular robber would be after exactly that, they wanted to find documents. Such papers surely wouldn't be in such an obvious place. They began to check the pictures on the walls and behind bookcases, and finally, they started feeling the walls themselves. Finally, they hit pay dirt: A well-hidden section of wood paneling moved just a bit, and they knew that this would be where the most secret papers had to be. The agents began to feel around very precisely in an attempt to find a latch. If they could get in, look at the papers, put them back, and sneak back out of the building, they'd be all set. Their internal systems would essentially take pictures of the data, eliminating the need to take the physical documents.

Just as they were opening up the safe, the silence was broken by the sound of pistol fire and pained silence before returning to a now-ominous lack of noise. Outside, the Grey Hooves had decided to take a more direct approach to getting into the building. Before long, the sound of galloping hooves began to come toward the office area...

[Vallermoore]

Megatron Metals Mine #1

The deal was done quickly; none of the CBA wanting to hang around that location with undead overseers any longer then they had to. There would be no more impersonation of SolarTempest, that was for sure. The soul of the undead enslaved bot was too his horror trapped within his dead enslaved body.

Cybertron

The Coder of the FakeSolarTempest went by the name of LongCon, although publically he used other names so his marks could not catch up with him and blast him or worse. He was an infamous con bot. In one case, he had killed the two and a half year old offspring of a rich bot , pretended perfectly to be the said offspring for over a year until he had access to vaults with a lot of Energon inside, then sneakily enslaved the Coder whilst he was defragging and taken all the bot's Energon before selling the Coder in the slave market. He had sold fake blasters to non-Decepticons (being a con, this was legal; selling real blasters to non-Decepticons would have brought Domintel down hard on him) and used an android body to replace a rich biological's wife (killing her and hiding her body on a motorway verge) before divorcing him and getting a large sum of money, as well as many other cons on biologicals and, much more riskily, even on other Decepticons. He silently vowed revenge on SolarTempest, but knew that a direct attack would be suicidal.

First he thought of the straightforward ways. Sending a bomb with a jammer attached. Too hard to do. Hiring a hitbot from a Scrounger gang or one of the syndicates. If SolarTempest was on his own, that would be possible, but not with the gang that SolarTempest had. Somehow tricking SolarTempest into committing treason. Very dangerous and if he messed up, not only would the CBA be after him, but Domintel would be as well. Megatron HATED that sort of con, as it was too much like narking and could bring Domintel and by doing that Megatron into disrepute and threatened the political stability of Cybertron. Getting his own gang of mercs. Even he didn't have that much Energon to hire enough mercs to wipe out the CBA. Then he had an idea. He would save up more Energon though various cons and some raids on easy targets and then buy the best body that could be legally sold in the Empire, of High General standard. Then he would one way or another befriend the CBA and ask to join in such a way that he would be accepted. And when the duels for the gang position started, he would win them all, end up facing SolarTempest...and kill him. Telling nobody about this, he decided to do some window shopping in the best body shop in all of Cybertron, to find out the best possible body and blasters. Window shopping in shops this expensive was normal. When it came to buying, the location of the vaults and key was given and when it all checked out the bot got what he paid for. The bot in this case who owned the shop was Ultimate. "Can I help you?"

"I would like to know about the very best body in your shop with the best blasters and mods and how much it would cost," he said.

Little Equestria
Cult Headquarters

Rather then just blasting the Grey Hooves as might be expected, the Forintel agents would have liked to transform into a laptop computer and a fax machine. That would have got them a free ride into the Grey Hooves' HQ. As it was they had two choices-blasting or concealment, perhaps with cloaking, and then blasting when the Grey Hooves found what the agents were themselves looking for.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Ultimate Mods

Ultimate was surprised by the request, but not amazed. Several bots asked him about this, many out of curiosity alone, and others because they thought that they could actually afford it. Out of all of those, less than 1% decided that it was a good investment once they heard the price. Of that less than 1%, only 10% of them ever came back with the money - the rest being intercepted by their enemies, or by DomIntel, before they could complete the deal.

Still, Ultimate refrained from chuckling or otherwise insulting this would-be customer. After all, he might be one of those who would prove to be the few of the few - someone who could, and actually would, buy one of the most expensive bodies on Cybertron.

"The final price depends on exactly what you consider 'the best' mods," Ultimate cautioned. "After all, what is best for someone who wants to withstand a nuclear bomb to the head is nothing like what is best for an elite sneak thief..." He tilted his head a bit. "And, of course, there are those who seek to be able to handle a few direct blasts to the board areas from a fusion cannon, all while delivering double fusion cannon blasts of their own."

LongCon seemed to miss the reference to a body meant to be able to take on Megatron as he broke into a grin at the last part. "A fighting body, yes. That's what I'm looking for. One that can handle at least 50 full-powered fights in a row."

Ultimate immediately relaxed. "Oh, you want to take over a gang from the bottom up!! Ah. I can deal with you then. You want the Guaranteed Winner Package!" He smartly walked over to a very strong and well-armored machine that was currently painted in plain navy blue. "It starts with this. This body can handle being whaled on by 10 simultaneous Standard Blasters, or four small missiles per salvo, or five Double Blasters. These riggings are the most common for upgraded gang members. If this is all they have, then you could take on the entire ICC and walk away laughing. But, of course, a syndicate will always have specialized weapons as well. That's where this comes in."

Ultimate led LongCon over to a display case with relatively small armor samples. He went behind the case, opened it up, and took out what appeared to be a plain piece of steel. Then, he very subltly flipped it over for only a fraction of a second. That's all it took to show that the "steel" was only plating. The material was Unobtainium, rare even on Cybertron, that had been brought back from a planet called Joack 12 many years ago.

"This stuff here is immune to acid shells, resists consumption by nanites, and when given the proper treatment, will not transmit heat. A thick layer of this will make you immune to strategies involving keeping a blaster on you until your boards burn up or your engine seizes. Or, perhaps, you need some of this instead?" He took out another chunk of metal, this one more obviously different. "This here is actually a microcrystalline material mixed with a micro-rod material. It disperses the energy from solid projectiles so well that you can stand in the way of a rail gun and laugh. The Guaranteed Winner Package includes one or the other, but you can add both - or even more - for an extra fee. Of course, that fee includes the engine power upgrade needed to carry the extra armor."

Next, Ultimate went over to the weapons wall. Most of the weapons were the real things, and were ready for installation on the spot. Some, however, were clearly props. These props are what he showed LongCon. "These weapons are so exclusive that even I don't dare keep them in sight. Instead, I show these prop versions simply to let you know what they would look like and can imagine what will be required to use them." He took down what appeared to be a copy of Megatron's fusion cannon. "Imagine one of these on each arm, and one on each shoulder. This is, quite frankly, what I suggest for a Guaranteed Winner armamentation package. That's four fusion cannons that you can fire at once. As long as you connect, anything less than a top-ranking military commander, the boss of a huge syndicate like the ICC, or of course, ME, won't be able to withstand the onslaught. Against the average Meltdown? It's instant win."

"Of course, big weapons are also big targets, and sometimes they get shot off or blown up before you have a chance to use them enough. That's why I make these for your backup system." Ultimate pulled down a couple of puny-looking gun systems that were clearly meant to be installed within the front of the body rather than hand-held. They had no triggers; only wires and tubes protruded from the safe ends. "These are tiny, but they feed directly from your Energon tank for fuel. That alone should tell you how much power they can command. Instead of destroying your opponent with blast force, they cut through him. Of course, they can be aimed, and will direct themselves based on your innate internal commands just like any proper Decepticon weapon. You direct a couple of these across the chest and another couple across the head, and your enemy will be chopped up so fast he won't even immediately fall apart. He will, however, stop functioning quite instantly. Then you just walk over and give him a couple of pokes and he'll fall into chunks like a character in an old Earthian cartoon."

Throughout his pitch, Ultimate never considered having to defend against a weapon like that belonging to Buzz. He also didn't address the matter of skill - it went without saying that an enemy could still outwit the user of a Guaranteed Winner Package. The name, though it was true the vast majority of the time, wasn't truly a "guarantee" in what another nation would consider the legal sense.

Seeing that he had the full interest of his would-be customer, he dropped the bomb.

"Just 5 billion Cubes of Supreme puts you at the head of that syndicate."

Ultimate didn't know which syndicate this guy wanted to be the head of, but he was sure that it would be one or another. People didn't even ask about this package unless they wanted to take over something big.

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

Little Equestria
Cult Headquarters

The Decepticon agents decided that it was smartest to just remain cloaked for now. After all, if the Grey Hooves were better at searching, they would be able to find the proper information and save the Decepticons from the possibility of having to outright ransack all of the offices.

As the Grey Hooves entered the room, the Decepticons artfully moved out of their way as they went about their search. Soon enough, they spotted the area the other agents had already seen. The Grey Hooves expertly removed the hidden panel, exposing a locked door like that found on a safe-deposit box. One artfully picked the lock and removed a sheaf of handwritten notes. Before they could even read them, the Decepticons' superior optics and processing power had captured the information. As the Grey Hooves leafed through the papers, each one's information was similarly captured by the hidden watchers.

Silently, over internal radio, the Decepticons discussed what to do. Would it really be necessary to blast the Grey Hooves at all? Doing that could bring an open law enforcement raid on the cult and cause it to scatter into units that would take ages to be found again. Not only that, blast damage would be very obviously of Decepticon origin, and the last thing ForIntel needed was for the cult to suspect that actual Decepticons were anywhere near it. Because of this, if they were to blast the agents here, it would make it very hard for the ForIntel duo to complete its own mission. They would be better off following the Grey Hooves out of the building, and after they were far away from the headquarters, blasting them with enough firepower to outright obliterate their bodies.

Yet even this way, the cult surely would notice that the Grey Hooves had offed their guards, and this wouldn't motivate them to stay in one place either. That said, the cult would be more likely to give its new members - the Decepticon agents - their backup headquarters address if it wasn't being openly besieged by federals.

With that in mind, the two simply stood back as the Grey Hooves made their way out of this office and went on with ransacking the rest of them. The ForIntel agents stealthily followed along, using their eyes as cameras to grab video of everything of interest. Doing this would eliminate the need to take the actual papers off of the Grey Hooves and make it so that there would be no drawbacks to simply "disappearing" them by vaporizing them completely.

Once the Grey Hooves made it to the last office, they went back through all of the individual units and stole several expensive items like computers and gold-handled ceremonial daggers. This, of course, was done to make the break-in seem like a simple robbery (compounded with murder) instead of a spying mission. It was a tactic that would work perfectly.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In only about 20 minutes total, the Grey Hooves cleared the building and trotted off into the night. Behind them, two cloaked ForIntel agents silently followed, waiting until they reached a location where it would be safe to fire their blasters at a level that would put both Grey Hooves on the "missing ponies" list instead of the "known dead" one. Firing blasters would cause a lot of light to erupt, so they had to wait for a suitably desolate area to do the deed.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Ultimate resisted the temptation to laugh or jeer, because if this customer could genuinely afford it, five billion Cubes was worth a lot of Energon. Hundreds of bots had been curious enough to ask this question; few of them could afford such a price and most were not serious. Of those who could scrape such an amount of Energon together, a few had fallen foul of Domintel and ended up blasted or indeed in a slag pit. These bots were those who were trying to take over the Empire itself by destroying Megatron, or who perhaps wanted to outright kill a High General. A few others had been too loose-lipped and their enemies had blasted them. Maybe a dozen bots at most in his shop's history had brought such bodies, and were now leading major gangs or minor syndicates that they had taken over. After testing a few things in the firing range at the back of the shop, and coming up with a few ideas of his own like an immensely well protected jammer, LongCon said "The next time you see me here, I'll have the needed co-ordinates and keys to the vaults of Energon needed to buy the best of the best." When he left, Ultimate doubted that he would see him again.

After looking over his finances as they stood, LongCon had around a fifth of the cost there and then, from various raids, cons and battle booty. How was he to get the rest together? He had one con going on against another Decepticon and several more against biologicals. He could buy some money from the Decepticon National Bank to buy oil from where it was cheap and make a profit on the deal. He could sell some of his spare bodies half price, although he kept two full size bodies and a sapient pony android in case the worst happened. Minor raids from abroad could bring a bit more in. His cons had brought him a mansion in the second richest district after the Government District, which was known as the Energon District because if you could buy a place here, you were rich. When he sold that, the Decepticon Supercomputer took note and flagged him up another level, to where undercover Domintel agents were alerted and opened a case against him. This didn't mean by itself that he was automatically going to be convicted and killed like with the secret police of many biological nations. He had not said a word or done a gesture that could count as treason, and buying an amazingly strong body by itself, and indeed using it to take over gangs or even syndicates was not illegal. If he was not targeting Megatron, the Decepticon Government, or spreading sedition or cultural corrosion it was his privilege to have that body and to use it for what he wanted. He was being watched to see if he was in fact a traitor. If he wasn't, he would never know Domintel was interested in him. Executing bots without any proof of treason was itself treason, as historically that had sparked revolutions in other places. And a revolution was something Megatron very much did not want, even though he was divine.

Longcon's Coder was both still alive and on good terms with LongCon. Most (but not all) Coders who ended up on bad or indeed fatal terms with their offspring had once been biologicals, and Longcon's coder had been Cybertronian built. Some Debuggers privately though former biologicals should be talked out of Coding altogether. With that rare thing, a gift of Energon, from his Coder, LongCon had the final 100,000 Cubes that he needed and the next time he came to Ultimate's shop, he had the money and could prove it, and was able to buy and mind-transfer to this custom body, paying the last few Cubes with his old body. Ultimate was very pleased indeed with all this Energon (LongCon was now down to his last ten Cubes) and happily let LongCon use the firing and testing range at the back of the shop. Amongst other things, this new body had a jammer that was as well protected as the motion boards, could camouflage weapons as to look (slightly) weaker, had extra anti-virus and anti slave chip devices, and had an array of hidden weapons. Not counting Megatron, Ultimate himself, the High Generals or the heads of the largest syndicates, LongCon was probably the toughest bot on Cybertron, with a vast advantage in most fights. His new body had at his request been painted red and black.

LongCon then went to the area of territory where the CBA was based and, without being an asshole in the process, started saying that he was looking for a really tough and impressive gang to join. Soon enough, the CBA got to hear of it and Lightning Dust and SteelHard thought they might as well check out this newcomer, expecting to send him away. What they saw was a bot whose body was clearly impressive, going under the name of StrongHand and they decided that they might as well take him to see SolarTempest. Whilst the CBA was not actively recruiting at the moment, it was not on closed status either, as to become a true syndicate it needed to grow much bigger then the little over twenty bots that it was now. Of course SolarTempest had no idea that this bot was really LongCon, the Coder of the FakeSolarTempest that he had sold into slavery, or that the body he was in was a body that even a High General would be happy to own. LongCon suppressed his own feelings, as if his plan worked, killing SolarTempest would be much easier with all the CBA either mind transferred away to new bodies or in battered blasted bodies and unable to intervene properly.

Cult Headquarters

When the time was right, the Forintel agents blasted the Gray Hooves and took the needed information from them, having let them do the hard work of finding it for them.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Ultimate Mods

Further customers that day would find Ultimate standing outside of his shop with a huge grin and a crystal-clear glass of Energon Supreme, cheerily waving at passers-by with his free hand and looking he had just won the biggest lottery jackpot in the universe. In a way, he had: He'd actually sold a Guaranteed Winner Package and was now in possession of more Energon than the vast majority of people. Not only that, he was paid in Supreme as he had demanded, making his payment worth about 1/3 more than it would have been if it was Standard. Even better yet, his customer hadn't haggled, but instead, paid the full freight without question! It was a great day. No...a great year!

After only a few minutes, he got curious as to how his excellently-built merchandise was going to be used. He closed up, to the dismay of those who had intended to upgrade that day, and swaggered his way over to his favorite DomIntel office - first stopping at one of his older vaults to grab 1,000 Cubes of Standard. After going in the back door, he was ushered into an empty room. Soon enough, his contact came in.

"Curious about another buyer, I presume. And I would presume that the one of interest is the guy who just set you up for 500 years of retirement, if you want to do that?" The agent smiled. Ultimate saw that he already had a chip in his hand.

"You guessed it! I've just got to see this battle. Nobody buys a body like that unless they're after something big!"

The agent chuckled. As he did so, the sound of an Energon cart being moved came through the door: The payment had been accepted.

"If you want to watch, you need to head on over to a budding syndicate called the Cybertronian Business Association. You'd better be quick, because initial vetting is already in progress. Your customer has serious beef with its boss - as you might have already guessed by your recent mega-sale. The thing is, the CBA has no clue. And, if he doesn't blow it by running his jammer before he gets to the boss, he's got an almost-certain chance of sending said boss to the Metal Stream, at least until someone restores him from a Save."

"The guy you were dealing with has a lot of names and is into a lot of things, and I am not at liberty to discuss those matters even with your 'consideration.' But know that he's a tricky one, and as you can tell by what he could afford, he's very good at it. His target, on the other hand, is more open for discussion. He's out to kill SolarTempest. Seems that SolarTempest had some dealings with Megatron Metals Mine #1. Problem is, those dealings involved your customer's offspring."

"Finally, this situation shows that your customer may have a bit of a glitch going on. The most sensible thing for him to do as a loving Coder would be to go raid Mine #1 and get that kid back. He could easily defeat that installation now. While there are soldiers around, they're there only to protect against foreign aggression. But he's acting as if his offspring is permanently dead. Perhaps he doesn't realize that the MM Enslavement Virus does not delete mental data, but instead, only overrides bodily control? The kid is an undead now, but since we aren't biologicals, Debugging could bring his mind back to full power - assuming, of course, that there is a recent-enough Save to use to replace any data lost during the zombification." DomIntel, of course, knew that there was indeed such a Save and exactly where to find it.

Ultimate nodded and uh-huh'd as the agent spilled all of the spillable beans. He was immensely curious about what connivery his customer had been up to that got him so rich, but knew not to bother asking. His contact would not tell those details for a bribe, or at least, not one of a size that Ultimate was willing to pay.

"What's he going by now?" Ultimate asked. "If I show up and admit to knowing him, I need to use the right name..."

"StrongHand."

Ultimate took the chip the agent offered, which not only contained the information he'd just been told, but a map with the CBA headquarters clearly marked. To his surprise, it was in a decent area - nothing like the town that was home to the IOPC or the one the ICC used as its base.

"A fancy syndicate! I wonder how long that'll last?" Ultimate chuckled. He knew that heavy syndicate activity tended to lower property values in the hometowns of such gangs due to all of the fighting it usually brought, and, of course, because of all of the lowlife "foot soldiers" who typically attached themselves to a big interdisciplinary gang.

As he walked out, he went over the chip's data some more. It had extra information about the CBA, stating that for now, the group typically only raided oil. DomIntel, however, figured that it wouldn't be long before it realized the high cash value of drug smuggling, casino operation, and the sex trade. SolarTempest, it believed, would be smart enough to start to capture these foreign markets once it was on a strong enough footing to fend off ICC market share protection attempts.

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

SolarTempest's Mansion

SolarTempest was out in the back shooting targets in the gang's private range when the new bot arrived. He immediately saw that this guy was packing a whopping FOUR full-strength fusion cannons, a whole lot of armor, and was bigger than the average bot thanks to the larger engine that had to fit in the body, and instantly saw that he could be a great new gang member - or a whole lot of trouble. SolarTempest listened intently for any sounds of aggression from what had to be a massive engine while watching closely for any dimming of the eyes. "StrongHand," however, knew well how to conceal tipoffs like this. After all, as a successful con-bot, he had plenty of practice.

"We haven't been advertising for new members," SolarTempest said. "Aside from the ability to bring us pure brute force, give me a reason to be interested in taking you on..."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon after LongCon's arrival, a futuristic plane covered in lights began to silently circle overhead with its flight engines off. It was Ultimate. Despite his massive, gaudy, and ungainly appearance in robot mode, and the correspondingly large size of his plane mode, he glided effortlessly in circles like an eagle. His engineering skills were clearly impeccable. He was not, however, making any attempt at stealth. "ULTIMATE MODS - DECEPTICON HQ" blazed across his wingspan over and over again in a side-scrolling light pattern, so everyone around would know exactly where to go to get a body that could carry over 100 tons of weapons and armor on mere thermal currents.

SolarTempest looked up and saw the mod-master up there making an ad out of himself, and then looked back to "StrongHand." "It seems you've made a substantial investment in the idea of joining this gang. What makes us so interesting, that you would come here instead of, say, the ICC~?" The gang leader was now still only slightly suspicious, but the seed had been (accidentally) planted by Ultimate's showy presence.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cult Headquarters, Little Equestria

The ForIntel agents quickly relayed all of the information they had gained back to Cybertron. Their agency was very glad to get the data and immediately began to make plans based on it. This data, however, did not include all of the names and descriptions of every cell member as the agency had been hoping. It did have some big names and all of the cell locations, though, and this would be enough to cause the cult serious damage.

"Maintain your covers and your membership in the Headquarters Cell," the team leader ordered. "But realize this - the pony who is truly at the head of the organization is NOT the High Priest there. Your information indicates that he is unknown to all but one of the people at the 'official headquarters.' That makes it so that the headquarters is likely to actually be just a decoy, which would explain their easy willingness to take you there when you're so new. They have plenty of loyal members there, but the REAL command isn't among them."

"We applaud your method of eliminating those Grey Hooves, by the way. We have deployed agents to replace them. The vaporization of the originals presents a perfect opportunity for us to further infiltrate their organization."

Just as this message came in, the advanced optics of the ForIntel agents picked up two tiny blue lights in the sky - the FTL arrival of replacement "Grey Hooves" from Cybertron. These brought along data that looked legit but wasn't, and this would make it seem as though their mission had been successful. By infiltrating as these particular ponies, the fake Grey Hooves would gain access to the cult investigation specifically, rather than just grabbing random positions within Little Equestria's secret police.

[Vallermoore]

SolarTempest's Mansion

SolarTempest looked the newcomer up and down. On one hand, a bot like him could be a massive plus to the gang. That body looked amazingly strong even by Decepticon standards. And he certainly seemed to be friendly enough and there seemed to be no reason to distrust him. On the other hand, as a Decepticon, he knew that a bot who brought a body this good and no doubt paid so much to get it was very much to something , especially as the gang was not openly hiring. Some gangs were eager for new members, either because members had been kicked out or even died raiding somewhere, or because they wanted or needed to grow and expand, perhaps because they were in a gang war or just wanted to get bigger. Whilst at least for now SolarTempest didn't think the newcomer wanted to kill him, he did, ironically, suspect him of wanting to take over his gang via the Decepticon Way itself. If this bot could fight his way all the way up to SolarTempest-and then defeat SolarTempest, then he would have the de facto right to take over the Cybertronian Business Association by sheer toughness, and SolarTempest would be taking orders from him and would have lost control of his gang, which was something he really didn't want, partly because it would be embarrassing. He took a look at the other members. If their engines were running roughly at the newcomer, it meant they either outright disliked him, or suspected something. If their engines were purring like cats they liked the idea of this member. It was then, as LongCon was about to answer SolarTempest's question with a plausible answer, that Lightning Dust, the former Vallermoorian military computer, stepped up, raised a hand, and stared at the newcomer. Whilst he could not read mind boards he could analyse bodies.

"StrongHand has brought a Guaranteed Winner Package. I once asked Ultimate about one of those for fun, and he said that it cost five billion Cubes of Supreme. Five billion-and since Ultimate is too strong for even us to consider raiding him and far too clever to be conned, that means StrongHand spent five billion Cubes. For a bot to both have so much money in the first place and to have spent it on that body means one thing in my mind boards-he wants to defeat all of us and take over as leader from you. And with this body, he has a 73% chance of success according to what my sensors are telling me. I am not trying to give you orders, SolarTempest, please don't take this the wrong way, but I strongly advise you not to let him join. You should be the ruler here, not that bot who thinks he is Mr Universe." Lightning Dust knew there was a risk in saying this unasked for advice; if SolarTempest thought Lightning Dust was indeed being uppity, at worst Lightning Dust might be expelled from the gang, (this was unlikely for a single case like this however) but his concern for SolarTempest overran the worry about the consequences. As if on cue Ultimate showed up overhead.

LongCon was thinking as all this was going on. If they turned him down for entry, in this body he could fly to Mine #1 and demand his offspring back-and if Overseer said no, he could just take his son back by force. Even undead bodies could be blasted into useless twitching hunks of junk that could be put into a furnace with a jammer running, and Overseer would rather give up one robot slave then perhaps end up being killed and ending up in the Decepticon Afterlife. With his son back, whilst he still wanted revenge against SolarTempest he could bide his time and wait for the right time to strike, maybe with some huge con that emptied SolarTempest's vaults. He could in this body, take over any small gang that was hiring, raid to bring in Energon in the short turn, then start slowly rebuild his fortune, maybe getting a huge gang together by defeating members of gangs and then adding them to his initial gang until he had hundreds or even thousands of bots under him-which he could then set on the CBA, sending SolarTempest to a furnace . Some day he would get lucky and get his long awaited revenge, one way or the other.

Of course if he started doing that, the bigger his gang grew, the more attention he would get from the Supercomputer and then from Domintel once the gang grew to a large enough size that it stood the slightest chance of a successful overthrow of the Decepticon Government. There was no law on the size of gangs but the leaders of the great syndicates were watched in case like Masher they tried to take over the Empire.


*******
Cult Headquarters, Little Equestria

Soon enough Forintel agents would be getting prime positions in the investigation into the nasty hateful cult that they disliked as much as the genuine Grey Hooves. A cult that would sacrifice Megatronists was not one that could be allowed to have a chance of taking power when the revolution came. Certain Grey Hoof officers were in fact deliberately left alive for now so as not to disrupt the helpful investigation into the cult.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

SolarTempest had already gotten an inkling of suspicion about this new guy when Lightning Dust showed up and confirmed it. He let off a backfire when he found out what the body cost, though he quickly activated freeze-face so "StrongHand" wouldn't see the full extent of his reaction.

After giving Lighting Dust's words a few seconds of thought, he agreed. He then informed StrongHand that the gang wasn't looking for new members, and suggested that he try the ICC if he wanted to join a syndicate right away. Secretly, he wondered if the applicant would respond by opening fire, and readied himself for a possible battle.

~~~~~~~~~

Little Equestria
Palace

While the Grey Hooves were spared excessive assassinations of those in the cult investigation group, the force as a whole had been very severely depleted. The same was now true of the police, who were now being targeted not only by Decepticons, but random people who hated their cutie mark checks and other brutality.

The leader, now aware that he was losing control, was frantic to try to pacify the population. He'd heard that his reversal of the apple ban was backfiring due to lack of supply, and figured that the only way to make it work right was to import the fruits in freighter-ship quantities. The problem was that he knew of only one source that could cater to such a huge order: Carjack Agriculture's Equestria Branch. Little Equestrian spies had - before they were captured as "wild ponies" and sent to the mines - sent back pictures of seemingly endless acres of apple orchards belonging to this company.

He paced around the throne room with agitation, his fake alicorn wings rustling as he did so. If anyone found out that he even tried to deal with the Decepticons, he would be branded a traitor and executed, most likely by his own stallions. Yet, if he didn't get the "bread and circuses" going full blast fast, and improve conditions even beyond that, he would be thrown out in a furious revolution of the people. It was up to him to decide whether to take the risk and attempt to order 10 cargo-bots full of apples from the very beings he'd taught his planet to despise...

~~~~~~~~~~

Cult Headquarters

The day after the break-in, the cult members arrived to the shocking sight of the door guards lying dead. It didn't take long for one, a weapons buff, to determine that they'd been shot by guns of the type commonly used by the government. As this one was looking at the shell casings and giving his findings, others entered the building - with their own weapons out, just in case - and looked for intruders. Soon enough, they found the ransacked offices. The culprits were long gone.

"They got our cell data!" Came the frantic report. The group leader quickly left the bodies of the dead and galloped upstairs to check. Sure enough, the information was gone. Meanwhile, all of the other members, including the two newest ones, stood around with expressions of horror mixed with fury.

Though they didn't waste any time in returning the bodies to the ground, everyone's mind was on that missing data. With it, the government could storm every cell at once, and all (except for the two Decepticon spies) were terrified at the thought of this happening. It was soon decided that they would put out the "Bolt" command to all members. This was a command for everyone, in every cell, to scatter and disappear into the population until further orders arrived. It was clear that whatever this entailed had not been written in any documents, but instead, told directly to those in the scattered locations at some point or other.

The Decepticon spies quickly and secretly radioed their real headquarters via their internal radios: If ForIntel was going to move on the cult, it would have to do it right now or else face an infinitely harder job.


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

Foreign Intelligence Headquarters, Cybertron

The room was tense as General Soundwave arrived and checked the latest reports. As he was doing this, the sound of the red alert alarm suddenly filled the room. This meant that immediate action was required. Within a second, Soundwave picked up that report and shut off the alarm noise. A pause after that indicated that he had already sent orders back in response.

"Cult Team A reports that the cult has decided to order all cell members into deep cover. We no longer have time for a widespread infiltration mission." Soundwave looked over at a specific lieutenant. "Send 100 assassins there immediately. We must exterminate all of the cult cells right now! If you don't have time to get them into android pony bodies, send them with whatever small forms are available, but have them stay under cloaking. We should hide our involvement as much as possible. So far, the overall destabilization plan has been working wonderfully, and we don't want to jeopardize that. But, our first mission is to exterminate that cult, and we have to do it while our information is still valid!"

Immediately, that lieutenant and his underlings got on their communicators and started calling up agents specifically trained in assassinations. Many were taken off of current postings on Little Equestria rather than being sent from Cybertron, and this allowed the agency to use mostly pony-bodied agents. Some, however, were sent from the home world. Luckily, there were indeed enough pony bodies for all of them thanks to the decision to give much of the work to already-deployed agents.

Ironically, those who came from Cybertron would arrive at their target locations first. This was because they were able to fly up from Cybertron's surface, enter FTL, and then fly to their targets. Those who already were on Little Equestria, on the other hand, were forced to use ground travel (or wing, if the were posing as pegusi) to reach their destinations in order to maintain their covers.

Within an hour of the order going out, what seemed to be gangs of drug dealers attacked apparently-random houses and massacred everyone inside with automatic rifle fire. They made sure to rob some things from the houses and bodies to hide the fact that they were actually hit squads, but weren't too concerned about people getting suspicious. The important thing was that Little Equestria didn't realize that actual Decepticons did it, rather than to make everything look entirely airtight-legit.

Over the next several hours, the scene was repeated at every location identified as a cell base. While some cult members surely weren't at their bases at the time of the raids, the overall group would be too devastated in terms of numbers to make more than a couple of coordinated terrorist actions before they would be neutralized by Little Equestria's own population (which would get rid of them to preserve their own safety, if nothing else).

As this was going on, the leader of the "headquarters" location was frantically trying to get a signal on his burner phone. For some reason, it had dropped to zero bars right after he had decided to give the Bolt Command. The two Decepticons, their jammers running at full power, looked just as dismayed by this as everyone else in the building.

Then, over the one thin unjammed band they had left open for ForIntel, they got the command they'd been waiting for. They were the agents on-site at a target location.

Less than 10 minutes later, the "headquarters" cell was exterminated. The agents walked out of the main doors, Megatronist Seals now showing on their flanks, leaving the carnage behind them.

If word got out about who did it, it would be seen as a retributive action by local Megatronists, who by now were proving that they were not to be messed with...

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

SolarTempest was expecting a full scale battle but to his surprise the bot just took out a piece of foil-paper, wrote a number on it in Binary, bowed and handed it to him. "If you change your mind one day, my radio number is there. Goodbye SolarTempest." He turned, left the mansion, transformed after a running jump and took off into the sky, followed by Ultimate. SolarTempest turned to Lightning Dust with a big smile on his face, bright eyes and a purring engine. "Now that really was useful advice, and that sort of advice is the kind that I don't mind getting. If we let him in he might have beaten ME! When one day this gang does grow, Lightning Dust, you'll probably end up as the Underboss if you keep being this useful." SolarTempest said.

Megatron Metals Mine #1

Unusually, Overseer was up on the surface, something always denied to his slaves. Life was good. Even High Generals were careful around him. Being undead meant that his body could only be put out of action by losing it's limbs or being utterly destroyed, and knowing this, his limb armour was thicker then that of most bots, with fluted joints. A very strong looking bot flew up, transformed, and said "Overseer, a bot was sold not long ago to your mine named SuperCon. I am LongCon, his Coder, and I want him back. Now. Or I'll send you to the Decepticon Afterlife." And he turned on a jammer strong enough to jam even a High General, preventing Overseer from radioing his mine guards. There were some Decepticon Military nearby but surprisingly they didn't intervene. They were there to prevent any non-Decepticon threats to the mine but this was a Deception v Decepticon battle and this bot was only after one slave. Raiding was a legal activity. Of course, a raider might be hunted down by Asset Protection forces later, but these were Decepticon Military bots. Many lesser mine bosses might back down, but this was Overseer, and he was not even scared of General Carjack the Genocider. The only bot he really feared was Leader Megatron. Also if he gave in without a fight other Coders might do the same thing as he had many hacked Decepticons toiling in the dark dusty depths of his mines.

Little Equestria

When the cultists found out what had happened and that key data vital to the protection of the cult's survival was in the hooves of the government's agents, they decided to put out the Bolt command to go into hiding and disperse , but their phones didn't work. Meanwhile the two Forintel agents sent out their messages in silent Binary to General Soundwave himself, such was the urgency. This was the privilege of Forintel agents and given the right conditions, all Decepticons-at a time of dire urgency, when a problem was just too large to tackle by one bot and effected the interests or the security of the Decepticon Government or Military, a low bot could tell even a High General about it, and if it was deemed right to do that, the bot was not punished. On other worlds, orders passed down and information passed up moved slowly over hours at best and weeks at worst. With the Decepticons, it moved quickly, both down and up. General Soundwave at once ordered in more agents to locate and wipe out as many cult members as possible to prevent the cult taking advantage of the situation and whilst they could not get every last one, nearly all of them were robbed and killed.

For General Soundwave, subverting a country from inside with the power of Forintel was so interesting. Most worlds could be crushed by Decepticon force with ease, and thousands of worlds had suffered such a fate. But subverting a world internally was a challenge even for Forintel. He soon got another message that General Carjack had been approached by agents of the pony government to try and bring in large numbers of apples on a country wide scale. As they could pay for it, General Carjack could get a lot of Energon but without knowing it, he risked interfering with Forintel's plans.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

SolarTempest was confused, but relieved, when the giant bot went on his way without a fight. After he left, SolarTempest made sure to tell Lightning Dust that his advice had been fine, especially since it saved him from having what could have been his riskiest fight yet! He looked at the foil-paper with the comms frequency written on it with a somewhat bewildered expression, and for a moment, considered tossing it away. But then, he got an idea...

Before he acted on that, he spoke to the rest of his gang. "It is certain that we have a very motivated enemy," he announced. "Nobody invests that kind of money just to show off on a residential street! Even Megatron's body is upgraded for good reason rather than'just for.' I say we do two things:: We find out more about this guy...and we do a major raid so we can upgrade enough to stand a good chance against this'StongHand if he decides to attack later!"

There was no discussion about these comments - this time, they were clearly orders and not suggestions.

~~~~~~~

Before long, SolarTempest was at the local DomIntel office with a cart that held a full 10,000 Cubes. With that money, he found his contact far more willing to talk than Ultimate's had been. Soon, he knew that he had been dealing with LongCon, who had sold all of his assets to buy that body, and who was mad about his offspring being sold off as a piece of mining equipment. LongCon was now on his way to Mine #1 to retrieve said equipment. This agent also gave away a few of LongCon's minor connives due to the large payment, including one in which he convinced a few parts stores that he was an authorized distributor of the Decepticon Parts Company and that they were now charging in advance. Of ~

course, he then flew away with the money, never to be seen again.

"He won't be doing cons like that again for a while," the agent chuckled. "He sold all of his spares to get that body he has now, and it's not like you can hide one of THOSE by repainting it and dropping in a new engine!" Trading it in would also be out of the question thanks to its extreme value.

With the knowledge that his would-be adversary had no spares, SolarTempest was even more determined to raid and then buy himself and his gang serious upgrades. While he didn't intend to get Guaranteed Winner Packages, he figured that they could attack as a group, and together, the upgraded gang would be the more-powerful of the equation.

~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Metals Mine #1

Overseer was somewhat surprised when the jammer went on, and got an unnervingly bemused expression on his face.

"Just who do you intend to jam with that?" The mine operator asked. "Me, who uploads a new Save to Corporate every day? My managers under me, who do the same? Or perhaps you threaten my metalstock, which I would just reload with copies of other slave minds I've kept..." The voice was hollow and clearly soulless. Overseer had no fear of the afterlife, for the part of him that could go to it had already been deleted over a century ago.

Inside the mine, the free staff were not nearly so sanguine about the powerful jamming signal polluting the tunnels. They raced to an old-fashioned-looking control console and quickly activated it. Outside, ground-to-ground artillery turrets popped up and quickly swiveled toward LongCon.

"Now," Overseer said, "It would be best if you surrendered. After all, a fine body like that would be a shame to have to vaporize..."

With that, LongCon opened fire on Overseer with all four cannons. To his surprise, Overseer dodged three of the blasts with ease. He was obviously used to this sort of response to him saying things like that! The fourth blast hit Overseer right in the wing, but rather than just vaporizing like usual, it burst into a shower of sparks. This meant that its interior had been full of rust that had been ignited by the fusion cannon fire, yet it had been managing to function just fine. Any doubts LongCon had about the stories of Overseer being a zombie were now erased.

Overseer laughed loudly now, not the least bit bothered by losing the part. As if in response, the other overseers fired the mine's artillery and gave LongCon's purchase its first live-action admire test.

"We don't tolerate any lousy cattle rustlers around here!" Overseer yelled over the noise of the energy artillery guns.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Carjack Agriculture
Equestria Branch

It had been a long time since General Carjack had been here personally, and he enjoyed the scent of the apples as thousands of ponies packed them into crates bearing the company logo. once packed, they were sent to an array of basic processing plants, where they were washed, given Carjack Agriculture stickers, sprayed with melted beeswax, and finally, reboxed with special foam padding for interplanetary shipment. The occasional roar of an arriving cargo-bot made it clear to all that this fruit was going far away.

Carjack didn't know much about Little Equestria, but just by its name and what it bought, he could tell that if he ever went there on official business, it would be more likely to involve his Battalion than his planters. Still, apples weren't weapons, and Little Equestria wasn't an official enemy of the State, so...

It was right about then that Carjack heard the familiar transformation sound Of an incoming Decepticon of a standard government build. A second more of thinking let him place the noise as that of an overt DomIntel agent. Carjack's mouth curled into a snarl. Such a person could only be there to mess with his deal, which was worth millions of barrels of oil!

~~~~~~~

Soon enough, the two were in the business office of this branch, where the agent explained the situation. DomIntel, rather than ForIntel, brought the message to hide any appearance of the latter agency's involvement. However, ForIntel was the concerned agency. It knew that simply demanding that the deal be scuttled would not go over with either Carjack or Little Eq
Equestria, and that Carjack - being of equal rank with Soundwave, could and likely would just tell him to jump in the slag if he tried to send that idea. Therefore, the messenger said, the agency was hoping for Carjack to come up with a way to make sure that there was no way to hide the apples' origins as Carjack Ag produce.

"Something more permanent than those removable stickers," the agent noted.

And so, since branding would open the apple skins and make them spoil, permanent food-grade ink was used instead. Now Little Equestria would have to either let the apples go to the stores as-is, and have everyone see the big Carjack Agriculture - Grown on Equestria mark, or peel each and every one of the 10 billion apples it had ordered. And if it did the latter, the slices would only keep - under refrigeration - for a few days. Whole apples, OTOH, would last for months if it turned out that the government had bought too many. This would make it a tough choice for Little Equestria's government.

[Vallermoore]

Megatron Metals Mine #1

LongCon realized that even if he did reduce Overseer to pieces of metal and feed them to a furnace, there was no way that he could keep him dead, and he wouldn't be able if he did win to find his son either. So he got out of there as quickly as he could under cloaking, managing to dodge most of what was fired at him. The two beams that connected would have literally blown off the wings of the average bot, but on him, the first bust the force shield he had put on himself, and the second caused pain, burnt-off paint and many dinks and dents that would need time with a ball peen hammer to sort out. Even with minor wounds he was still hugely strong and new plans were appearing in his mind. He would buy for one of the handful of Cubes left a list of hiring gangs, small ones of no more then three or four bots, and if after two or three attempts he was not accepted, he would make his own far from where SolarTempest lived on the other side of the planet, and raid in the old fashioned way with three or four bots. He could raid somewhere rich and dangerous even to Decepticons in this body, buy a new spare and some tools (he in fact had two spares and a sapient pony spare but another spare would not hurt) and start the slow purpose of gaining support with every raid. Over time, if nothing stopped him, his average gang would become bigger and start to evolve into his own syndicate, and then bigger still. He could also carry out cons once he got spares and his fortune would start to grow again, and when the time was right, he could settle things with SolarTempest, and pay a gang like Grand Theft Anything to get his son back. Like Genghis Khan, he would one day have thousands of bots under him. Of course, if it ever looked like he was becoming a threat to the Government, the full weight of Domintel would be turned on him.

The Cube turned out to be wasted as he was so tough that none of the existing gang leaders wanted to let him in, as it would mean he would beat them. So he went to a place that he thought would be right for gathering support. If bots were too rich they would be unlikely to be interested in joining him, but on the other hand, if they were too rusty and poor, they would be too unfit and too poor to be able to raid, and they might have mental problems too. So he went to a lower class area with large numbers of worker bots, who worked in foundries, Quick Drinks and the like, walked into a Quick Drink and loudly announced he was looking for bots who would serve under him and go on a raid that would enrich them so much that they could give up their jobs. He was hoping , he said, in the long term to found a Syndicate. Even with his dented wing, he still looked amazing in that body. In human or pony terms, he would be bulging with muscles that themselves seemed to have muscles.

Cybertron

Of course, SolarTempest was not just going to forget about him and risk having him come back when he least expected it and blast him into ingots. This bot was clearly a foe and a very strong foe. Having told his gang that upgrades were needed in case he came back with murder in mind, he hauled 10,0000 Cubes to a Domintel office and found out just who that bot was and why he got such a body. The CBA certainly needed to raid now, locate and deal with their foe before he could make his own syndicate and come after them. Had LongCon just flicked his jammer on earlier and attacked them he could have done them a lot of damage so they were lucky that he tried to deceive them instead.

Carjack Agriculture
Equestria Branch

General Carjack was looking forward to all that oil that was going to flow in that could be made into lovely useful tasty (to Decepticons that is) Energon. Having a food based economy might seem strange, as if ponies had an economy with apples as their money. But it was the only thing that even the most enterprising Decepticons could not forge. Apples were no weapon of war and the Decepticons were not at open war with Little Equestria. He snarled and his eyes dimmed when an overt Domintel agent showed up to mess with this deal. Rather then trying to destroy the deal-which could cause Carjack to tell Soundwave where to go (yes, even High Generals had arguments on occasion to the point of raiding each other) it was decided to mark the apples as Decepticon apples.

Little Equestria

When the apples appeared in the shops, the 5% to 10% minority of ponies who were Megatronists were overjoyed and emboldened, the 5% to 10% of ponies who hated Decepticons soon heard rumours that ponies had been traded for the apples, and were horrified, and the others were pleased but uneasy. For the next few hours, underground political activity would indeed stop as the crunchy sound of millions of ponies eating millions of apples was heard all over the place.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron Metals Mine #1

Overseer snorted as his overpowered adversary transformed and began to fly away. To his dismay, the Guaranteed Winner Package easily withstood the mine's artillery fire even in the air, and soon, what would have been the best slave ever was out of sight.

For the first time in a long time, Overseer would leave his mine. He had to track down this excellent piece of equipment and make it his! As a zombie, that slave would truly last forever or as close to it as it would come! All he'd need to do is find a way to deactivate it and then sprinkle zombification dust into it - and as the top-producing mine operator, he had plenty of bonus money that he had saved up. It was definitely time for a trip.

Soon, he had replaced his destroyed wing with a newer one, and was in flight to the Metal Planet to access services that were only readily available there.

Cybertron

The store didn't bear the futuristic derricks of the IOPC anymore, but its status as a main outlet for the syndicate might as well have remained unchanged. The same people still hung out there - at least, the ones who were still functional - and it still offered exactly what Overseer wanted: assassination services by the best in the business. With a surprisingly solid clunk for an internally-rusted zombie, he landed out front and strolled over to the proper counter and waited, his dimly-energized eyes marking him out as someone out of the norm.

All around him, Decepticons in the know backed off. Nobody was comfortable around Overseer, who was well known in the underworld for having deleted his own soul and later rising as an undead. The very concept was creepy, even to the mob, and nobody was really sure about what he could do to them thanks to wild rumors that swirled around his name. Even so, it wasn't long before an attendant came out to serve this new customer.

"There is an enemy you would like us to take care of for you?" the young bot asked with a bit of incredulousness. One thing Overseer's mine was known for was its ability to capture nearly everyone.

"Yes. I'll get right to the point. He has an Guaranteed Winner Package. I want that turned into a Guaranteed Laborer Package. You get my drift?" Overseer's statement was ice cold. "This piece of roaming metalstock was all but immune to my mine's artillery. I need you to take it offline without doing much damage to the body, and then deliver it to me."

The clerk didn't even rumble his engine. He efficiently got the details, including the fact that the target's offspring was somewhere in the mine. Then, he made sure to get a very detailed description of this offspring. "It will help if you do a code-read. Are you able to accomplish this, or should we send a hacker?"

It turned out that Overseer could indeed do a code-read. While he didn't have any decryption skills at all, his enslavement virus meant that he could simply order the target to drop its encryption and then read away. The agent smiled broadly at this, not only because it would make things easier, but because he'd be able to use that exploit for all sorts of nefarious plans of his own.

"Once you give us a copy of the offspring's mind-code, we will certainly be able to bring down his Coder for you. It will only cost you a million Cubes."

Overseer agreed, and with that, the two went off to a Megatron Metals vault complex. There, Overseer led the clerk to one of his vaults, and on the spot, rekeyed it and made its contents the payment. The store would then have one day to transfer the contents - since this complex belonged exclusively to Megatron Metals staff, outsiders weren't allowed to keep coming in beyond that time.

Though he was stinging at the cost of the contract, Overseer was also confident in the ex-IOPC's ability to get the job done. He returned to his mine, certain that it wouldn't be long before LongCon would be better off renamed HardWorker.

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

Soon enough, the newly-hired assassin team had - after radioing well in advance of their arrival - picked up a copy of LongCon's offspring's Code. Overseer also brought this slave out for them to see. He already had a big dent in one wing, but his eyes were flared with desperation. It was to his disappointment that the group just took several pictures of him from many angles and then took off, leaving him to go on toiling.

It wouldn't be long now before LongCon would run into what seemed to be SuperCon, and this bot would - while looking and acting exactly like the original - ask him to celebrate his "escape" over a Cube of Supreme. Inside, however, this fake SuperCon would be entirely under the control of an assassin, who would have already poisoned that Supreme with an engine-killing compound. The container was one that was specialized for this work: It dispensed good Energon when tilted in one direction, but poisoned Energon when tilted just a little bit differently. That way, the assassin could drink first and come out fine, tricking the target into thinking it was legit, and pour a deadly concoction out of the same exact container for that target to have.

~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, LongCon was having no trouble recruiting gang members at the Quick Drinks. They figured that if he could afford that body, he must be a super-successful raider. The idea that he got most of his money from violence-free con jobs didn't cross their minds. People also figured that with the leader being built up like that, he could take all of the fire and they could just breeze into their targets. Even better, he would likely pay for upgrades. Soon enough, LongCon had enough interested bots crowded around him that he would be able to pick and choose his gang's initial members.

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

Little Equestria

While everyone enjoyed the apples, all were now aware that the government had gone back on its promise to never have peaceful relations with the Decepticons. In another era and on another world, it would be like getting produce from a source like ISIS. Many considered refusing to buy the apples at all, afraid that they were poisoned or full of biological enslavement viruses. Trust in the government, already low, dropped even further - though the people ate their apples before saying anything about it.

In many homes, even as the apples were being enjoyed from big baskets-full, dinner table talk centered on the idea of revolution. Meanwhile, Megatronists offered prayers of thanks to their god and sent their mental well-wishes for whatever he was up to. They knew he had to be up to plenty if he was bringing his Empire's existence to the forefront of everyone's mind like this.

~~~~~~~~~~

As this was happening, news of the spate of murder-robbery crimes was starting to spread. Along with that news came reports of cult propaganda being found in many of the targeted homes. It was clear to those who bothered to pay real attention that these weren't random acts, but at the very minimum, the results of some kind of gang warfare.

The Grey Hooves were the first government agency to spot this correlation, and the fact that it happened right after the raid on the cult headquarters. "I'd say we have some moles in our organization," its director complained. "This happened right after we went out for the addresses of all of their little cells. Not that I care about some dead cult scum. But I do care that our other operations might be jeopardized."

Right in the same room, the two Decepticon agents who had replaced two of the Grey Hooves stood there and made the appropriate concerned expressions. The director had no clue.

"Even more pressing, though," the director went on, "is that we haven't found the actual leader of that cult. This means that he could start up another group. We must find him and neutralize him before that happens. Another matter we have to attend to is the Megatronists. They're bolder than ever before now that the police are less likely to dare to intercept them for violating the cutie mark law. The cops are all worried that any Megatronist will turn out to be a heavily-armed killer, so they've started to look the other way."

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Even as Overseer was planning to capture at the very least his body-of course if he could also capture the mind inside it before it could mind transfer it, the revenge would be so much sweeter, LongCon was finding recruiting easy. In fact, many more wanted to sign up then he was ready for right now. If his first raid were a success, and with this body and his basic SEDP it should be, all of them could be wealthy and would be able to upgrade and sort out who was over who in ranking, and then come back to this Quick Drink with their upgrades where he could recruit more and take on one of the difficult targets at the more dangerous end rather then the middle end of the Raid List. If that raid worked, then he and his larger gang with their upgrades could fly back again, and he could start to at least slightly upgrade new bots like MasterBlaster and to go with sections at a time of the budding syndicate. Within months, he would have a gang big and upgraded enough to take on the CBA and if they won, gain all the Energon in their vaults and their mansions. When he intended to go back again for yet further recruiting and a raid at the very top end of the Raid List Scale, and diversifying into cons, drug sales, legitimate goods and services, and the dealing of weapons from other planets to other planets (rather then dealing in Decepticon weapons to other planets that would soon get him a home visit from an angry company or more of the Decepticon Military with an execution order.)

The richer he got, the more upgrades and the like he could give to his gang and the bigger it would get until one day in the future he would be like Masher-and then by buying him or paying a gang like Grand Theft Anything or in a last resort a huge attack on Mine #1 he could get his offspring back.

If he got that rich, perhaps he could buy a High Generalship from Megatron, or even pay Replicator to make him divine and try and take over from Megatron he thought-with his freeze-face on when he thought those thoughts. He selected a purple bot named Grasper, a steel-grey bot named Bright Eyes, a bot in a khaki scout body named Speedy and a green bot named Dom.

"We are going to attack a mid range target first so that we can be sure of success, and then when we have shared out the Energon and you have brought any upgrades that you want and can afford we will go for a big target-the sort of target that you don't have to raid-or work-for an entire year for, unless you use to spent it on spares or great upgrades. And when we have done that we can go back with tales of success so I can hire more bots for other raids and you can rest and have fun."

******
As LongCon set off heading for the human planet of Erron, a planet about as hard to raid as Vallermoore, (but unlike Vallermoore, on the Raid list) the assassin team had got their pictures and were taking extra care building a special body that looked just like SuperCon, down to the dent on the wing and the same internal parts of the same high quality, and were thinking of a plausible escape story-LongCon might be a Coder but he was still a Decepticon.

*****
Little Equestria

As soon as the initial feast was over (speaking with a mouth full of apple was hard for ponies) it was not just the hardcore Megatronists and other regime-haters who started talking revolution. Their dictatorship was weak. They had legalized apples when it was nowhere near Sunreturn (the one time when apples were always legal for a few days) and ponies were starting to pick and choose jobs and even openly show banned cutie marks with most police looking the other way. The dictatorship was corroding by the day. Not all were sure of what they wanted, but most wanted the leader they thought of as the False Alicorn to go by force if need be.

The director of the Grey Hooves said "I'm going to set up a new detective division-the G Division, with the most loyal and hardest of us and the Royal Guards, to detect who is behind the murders, cult killings or not. And a thousand strong group called the Black and Tans from their uniforms who will be brave enough and well armed enough to enforce the cutie mark laws. If ponies can get away with breaking them, we will have a revolution on our hands sooner or later."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
The unmarked roving DomIntel agent in the corner of the QuickDrink didn't think much of it when he heard a recruitment attempt go out, but when he saw that the requester had a Guaranteed Winner Package, he rose from his seat. He hadn't had a direct assignment in a long time, and he had been getting bored. Thanks to his rank and years of service, he was granted the discretion to personally investigate anything that seemed like it could be fishy. A raider looking for an entire gang after being able to afford a body like that was just barely offbeat enough to qualify - usually, a bot that rich would already have a gang and would just have to call up its members when he decided to raid again.

Cockily, like a typical raider, the agent walked over and joined the small throng of interested bots, with the intention of making his life more interesting - on the government's dime.

Soon, he introduced himself as Dom, while secretly groaning at making what humans would call a "Freudian slip" with the name. To his surprise, the big bot didn't seem to make the connection, and he was one of the ones who were admitted in. Secretly, he radioed back to his branch office over a very well-classified frequency that he had infiltrated a new raid gang. The office merely sent back a couple of chirps, not Binary but seemingly random, which were the code to let him know that he had passed an authorization check and was free to continue.

~~~~~~~~~~~

LongCon did wonder about the bot's name, which sounded more like a human's than a Decepticon's, but was so excited to have an easy time recruiting that he never thought that "Intel" might belong on the end of it. Perhaps it was short for Dominator, or maybe Demolisher? He would have to ask later...

For now, he decided to hit a place called Erron, which was fairly advanced but was not expected to have anything that could do anything serious to a Guaranteed Winner-upgraded body. Just like the others thought, he would go in first and let the defenders waste their ammo on him, and then the others would come in to do the work of raiding. They gathered their tanker-trailers, hitched up, and were on their way within just a couple of hours. Nobody was worried about losing his job; jobs were only there to bridge the gap from raid to raid anyway, and every employer on Cybertron either knew this already or - if they were really new at the employing game - found out how it worked within a month.

Soon, the new and as-yet-nameless gang dropped out of FTL only to find themselves uncomfortably close to a warship the size of the one Vallermoore had given Cybertron. They instantly went to full cloaking and began to make their way past the thing as fast as they could without becoming obvious, and to their good fortune, they went unnoticed. They didn't realize it, but this ship had only a small skeleton crew because it was awaiting maintenance, and the area had been peaceful for so long that this crew had become lax.

Next, they evaded detection by a system of satellites meant to detect incoming traffic. This system was clearly older than the ship, and it didn't have what it took to break the many different cloaking systems being used.

Just when they thought they'd have easy flying all the way down, they encountered a system that worked in an entirely different way. Rather than trying to detect anything directly, this military defense grid scanned for the turbulence in the air caused by incoming objects. Decepticon cloaking could do a lot - thwart visual, radar, thermal, radiation, and even more forms of detection - but the one thing it could not do was stop the air from being significantly disturbed by the passing of such large bodies. And, with that, Erron knew that five aircraft were on their way in, though it couldn't tell the exact nature of these aircraft.

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

"It looks like we have four small stealth jets and one large one infiltrating!" The local military base's air traffic monitor reported. "They're about 40,000 feet up and losing altitude fast!"

Immediately, the commander ordered that the craft be hailed and ordered to decloak. If there was no response, or an outright refusal, the order was to be repeated. A second nonresponse or refusal would mean that the base would open fire with its batteries of anti-air energy weapons.

LongCon, of course, had no intentions of responding. The Erronese could see what they were facing once the gang arrived at the refinery it was headed for. He did, however, have the gang spread out so that the base couldn't easily hit more than one member with each blast. Of course, everyone also immediately started doing individual maneuvers to make aiming the big and un-agile base-mounted energy cannons even more difficult for the Erronese.

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

Little Equestria

While there wasn't much in the way of a coordinated movement yet, and no unified goal for a new government, most of the ponies here agreed on one thing: The current government sucked, and would surely go back to sucking immediately if it had a chance to shore up its means of control. They also agreed about just what sucked about it - it was far too controlling, too brutal, and too micromanaging about everything. Its punishment of immediate death in the street for what shouldn't have been crimes at all had cost nearly everyone some family member or other, though for most, it was distant cousins affected rather than immediate relatives. This still gave way too many ponies a personal stake against the False Alicorn's government. Then, there was the False Alicorn himself, who struck them as at least somewhat insane for his wearing of fake wings and how he strutted around with them.

In the midst of all of this, Decepticon Foreign Intelligence was ramping up what would be its as-of-yet biggest operation ever. It began to move to position the Megatronists it had discovered in situations that would be likely to lead to leadership roles in whatever new government would be formed. Those who had royalist leanings were strategically moved into situations where they'd be shoo-ins for a new king's court, while those with democratic ones were surreptitiously set up with plenty of opportunities to gain airtime and become known to the people. This way, whether the new government was a monarchy or a democracy, there would be Little Equestrian Megatronists ready to take it over.

At this time, even the Megatronists didn't know that their sudden good fortunes were the result of actual Cybertronian machinations. All they knew for sure was that now, they were gaining command over companies, being promoted within various other structures, and generally doing well. While they still hid their Megatronist and Decepticon cutie marks, they did realize one thing: Someone out there knew who they were, and was very approving of their beliefs. They just didn't realize which friendly radar had picked them up.

Among Megatronists who knew each other, this became the source of some idle speculation. Groups of friends noted that at some companies, the one they replaced had mysteriously disappeared. Or that the CEO was now acting a little different than he used to. Or that the person above them had suddenly gotten fired, even though he had apparently done nothing different than ever.

"If our good luck is the result of a conspiracy, it has to be a vast one," they'd say to each other. "It'd have to be something so big that the entire planet is in on it!"

Yet, very few Megatronists dared to think that, while all of Little Equestria was far from in on it, an agency belonging to a much more populated planet was indeed behind everything. The few who had an inkling sent private prayers to Megatron congratulating him on being so effective, yet so subtle that hardly anyone suspected the hand of the God of Connivery and Subversion was directly moving at least some of the chess pieces.

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

Arfon

"Do let them know that I'm not limited to connivery and subversion when the time comes to build a temple on Little Equestria. This time comes soon, by the way. Expect redeployment in about two months. Now is the time to designate your successor on Arfon and train him to be the Head Priest there once you're gone."

The message to LoyalStar was short, but it had come directly from Megatron. LoyalStar could only wonder what was going on at his new destination. He was, however, sure that he would get all of the relevant details just before it was actually time for him to arrive at his next missionary location.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron/Erron

LongCon put his thoughts about Dom's name aside for now and concentrated on the raid. He could not afford for it to go wrong if he wanted his gang to be contented. When they arrived they found themselves next to a warship with guns capable of blowing them to pieces, cloaked, and evaded it. They went past some defence satellites and were getting very close when they were discovered. He gained a few seconds by saying they were Vallermoorian jets escorting the Queen of Vallermoore before battle was joined. The outer cannons could be blasted by LongCon and the others but the inner ones were too close to the oil tanks to explode without exploding everything else. Grasper got the Decepticon equvilent of a flesh wound on a wing before they were down there and looting the oil. The scared staff called a nearby airbase and five fighters were launched, but LongCon, still cloaked and in robot mode, was able to blast the fighters before they could blast him. He also blasted a tank column before they could get close, and soon enough they had looted five hundred thousand Energon Cubes worth of oil with only slight damage to their paint from bullets, and Grasper's scratched wing.

After going another way out to avoid the warship and reaching the edge of the Decepticon Zone of control, LongCon announced something unusual and to the covert Domintel agent, something not exactly treasonous but slightly suspicious. Normally the gang leader took a far bigger share then every other bot. "Each of us will get an equal share of this haul. In my gang, that will be the rule, unless some bot really messed up a raid and gets a much reduced share. When one day this gang is a syndicate, every bot will be equally rewarded." That sounded a little like support of Communism or at least Socialism, but it did also mean the bots could upgrade faster and more bots would want to join. Once the Raid tax had been paid, the oil refined and the Cubes handed out, the bots went shopping for upgrades with a hundred thousand Cubes each. Whilst not enough to buy the best of upgrades, they were able to improve themselves. Bright Eyes brought new Double-Strength blasters, getting 20% off the price as he turned in his earlier blasters, Grasper preferred stronger, thicker armour, Speedy got a Decepticon grenade and some new games at an official games store (even then he would be careful to run them through his antivirus first) LongCon spent most of his haul on one of the strongest fusion cannons legally sellable to Decepticon civilians, and Dom upgraded with some chest cannons (and secretly radioed a report to a Domintel station about LongCon. Being an agent himself, he was not legally considered to be a grass. For a non-Decepticon to inform on another Decepticon was normally considered a form of treason against Decepticon culture, with certain legal exceptions like being summoned for a formal investigation. Nobody liked a grass on Cybertron.

LongCon and his now upgraded gang went and showed off at the same Quick Drink they had come from and the upgrades showed at least to those who knew them or had worked with them that it was not a con. "I need new bots to swell this gang, and every bot-even me-will get an equal share in the profits from every raid, regardless of what their gang rank ends up being when we do the tests to find out who is strongest. I am planning to raid one of the more dangerous planets at the risky end of the Raid List-where the hauls are the biggest and the best- and will do most of the fighting with this body so you don't have to. Raise a hand if you want to enlist in the Equality Raiders!" He wondered how many bots from the two hundred or so that heard him would want to join in.

Little Equestria

The ponies by now were smuggling in weapons and forbidden books of combat magic, and they nearly all hated the currant government with a passion. It had killed family members, and spoiled lives. The False Alicorn was thought of as both comical and ridiculous, strutting about and calling himself an alicorn when everypony knew he was just a unicorn. Some ponies hoped for democracy, others wanted a king or a military, (but less harsh) government whilst the Megatronists wanted a pony dictator with the virtues of Megatron. When the revolution did come, it would be bloodthirsty.

Arfon

Loyal Star was talking to a pony named Regal who had a holy chalice cutie mark that reminded him in a way of his old pony self who was now an Acolyte. Only Decepticon robots could be Assistant Priests or Priests, but biologicals could be Acolytes or Chief Acolytes (although they were expected to progress to robot bodies reasonably soon if that was possible). He suddenly heard a message from his God. "Do let them know that I'm not limited to connivery and subversion when the time comes to build a temple on Little Equestria. This time comes soon, by the way. Expect redeployment in about two months. Now is the time to designate your successor on Arfon and train him to be the Head Priest there once you're gone."

He told Regal, "Regal, I got a message from our God. He wants me to pick a successor as Chief Acolyte to run the Temple here when I move on. I want it to be you, but are you prepared to dedicate yourself to the religious life and when the time is right and you feel strong enough, to take the necessary steps reasonably soon to earn the Ultimate Upgrade?" Chief Acolytes were generally given up to five years to move on by Upgrading to the best form of life in the universe, otherwise they were demoted and looked on rather sadly.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Erron

The people of this planet had encountered Decepticons, but it happened only rarely and never at this particular refinery. Therefore, the civilians were quite awed by the giant robots as they did their raiding, and stood around with their mouths agape as they realized that the rumors of their massive size were not exaggerations after all. It was like a bunch of living 10-story buildings had arrived! On top of this, the shiny paint and perfectly-contrasting Decepticon Seals were like things out of movies. The sights, sounds, and even smells of the small group of invaders would never be forgotten by those who had the guts to come somewhat close to the scene.

Inside the administration buildings of the refinery, the staff thought the goings-on were far less cool than the onlookers in the streets. They would have to put up with endless meetings in which their bosses would basically drone on about security and wring their hands. The lower-level workers couldn't care less about that sort of thing as long as they still got paid, and some wondered why the bosses would pretend to care. After all, this refinery was a nationalized one, so in the end, all of the losses would just go into some big government ledger somewhere and be forgotten.

After the raiders left, the staff came out of the buildings and assessed the damage. Those responsible for the giant oil-holding tanks were glad to see that, while the bots had made big holes in the tops to speed up the extraction of the contents, the damage would be easy to fix. In fact, it seemed to have been done in a way that was meant to be easily-repairable. This appearance was indeed correct - many Decepticons learned that if they kept damage to a minimum, refineries would come back online faster - and this meant that they could be raided again sooner! While LongCon didn't really plan on coming back to this particular place all that fast, he and his gang had used the procedure just in case.

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

Cybertron

After the loot was cashed in and distributed, everyone quickly went and got upgrades. Only Speedy avoided actual body upgrades, choosing instead to arm himself with several grenades. He was also the only one to put a significant amount of funding into games. Upon learning of this, LongCon wondered what the scout was already packing under his panels. Scouts, he knew, always had some kind of killer mods to make up for their wimpy-looking sizes.

This, however, wasn't a big concern for LongCon. The group's first raid had been a great success, and he felt confident in taking on a truly hard target. He chose a futuristic world that was known for having teleportation technology that gave its military extreme mobility. It also was home to a species that, much like the Decepticons themselves, drank oil as its food. This gave them a huge motivation to fight to keep it, since a lack of it could lead to starvation. The prevalence of oil here, in fact, was what allowed such a biological species to evolve. It was very plentiful, and with their digestive systems, it provided more fuel to them than eating anything that was recently alive, photosynthesizing, or other common methods of powering biological bodies.

That same prevalence made it so that a group of successful raiders could easily drain enough oil to fill their tanks in less than an hour, provided they had equipment that was good enough to work that quickly. It would be like raiding salt water from Earth - there was a seemingly endless supply. In fact, it was a wonder that the Decepticon Military had not yet made it an Annual Raid target. LongCon wondered about this fact for a minute, not sure if the lack of Military action there meant that the troops always had better targets, or if there was a reason it wasn't too eager to send the mass horde at this juicy-looking target. He looked again at the Raid List's designation of "extremely hard..." and decided to go ahead with his plans.

~~~~~~~~~

At the Quick Drink, LongCon had no trouble gathering a new crowd of would-be recruits. He would have gone home after that, but he had sold his mansion and now was actually homeless. He certainly couldn't admit that to his gang! After thinking about it for a while, he decided that he would stop off at his Coder's place once he had chosen the new recruits.

Meanwhile, the assassin - now perfectly operating within the counterfeit SuperCon body - had also figured out that this would likely be LongCon's next move. He flew to an alley near LongCon's Coder's house and waited there for his quarry to arrive. When the time was right, he would reveal himself and spin his escape story, and then suggest sharing a glass of Supreme to celebrate his "escape."

Down in Mine #1, the real SuperCon continued to work, praying to Megatron for a miracle or at least a fluke in his favor. Megatron, alas, had set his systems to ignore all pleas from robotic slaves, who he saw as even less than the mere humans that filled most of the ranks of the forced labor force. Ex-Decepticon slaves, in his view, were not worthy of any consideration. Unlike human ones, who might be striving to improve themselves and eventually become actual Decepticons, those who were already Decepticons when they fell to slavery had shown such severe deficits as to be unworthy of the very name - and therefore, an "unperson." SuperCon would have to redeem himself before he would get Megatron's ear again, and this would take becoming free and then performing enough heroic feats to prove that his time of slavery had been a mere fluke.

Little Equestria

It wasn't long before the Black and Tans hit the streets, but to their dismay, they already faced some sort of organized opposition. They soon realized that there had to be at least one mole somewhere in the government - there was no other way opposition could have organized so quickly! Yet, they had no idea who or where this, or these, spies could be. Anyone anywhere along the chain of command, planning, or even overhearing, could be the one who gave the tipoff.

What they found on the streets was that people were taking potshots at them the minute they saw their uniforms. These shots often took out one or more of a group of Black and Tans, and it seemed as if the shooters could have been intentionally missing those who weren't killed, perhaps to hide their true skill levels. Ambushes were also set up, with open Megatronists strutting in front of them. When the Black and Tans moved to execute these blatant "traitors," they would suddenly be attacked by fairly large organized groups that would come in from behind and the sides. These groups would quickly pound the distracted Black and Tans, sometimes causing death through brute force, as the open Megatronists then escaped unscathed.

While the Grey Hooves and their new divisions seemed to think all of these attacks were coordinated by one actor, the reality was that there were now a few groups operating. ForIntel was behind most of the shootings, and was indeed hiding its normally-perfect aiming capabilities by intentionally missing. It figured that 100% perfect shots would give away the robotic nature of its agents, so it had ordered that the operations be more "messy" and biological-like. Meanwhile, a group of Megatronists had formed and was doing the ambushes. Random people were also taking potshots at the new Little Equestrian death squads, and this added further murkiness to attempts to figure out who was behind firearm-based attacks.

Needless to say, all of these activities did more than let the Black and Tans know that they weren't invincible. They also emboldened the populace, and because of this, even more joined in on attacking government agents. Soon, they would be able to delete enough of the government's forces to be able to march openly in protests, and once that happened, it wouldn't be long before they'd be marching on the palace with regime change in mind.

While all of this was very bad for the False Alicorn, who was now thinking that a (potentially permanent) interplanetary vacation just might be a good idea, the fact that it could be temporarily bad for all of Little Equestria didn't cross anyone's mind. Even so, there were many different ideas of how the planet should be ruled once the hated current dictator was overthrown. These differences would likely be settled at least partially by violence.