An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Vallermoore]

South Dakota

Pesticide knew he could be in great danger from this bot, which was now showing the company it worked for as a threat display. Decepticon companies tended to get angry to the point of blasting if anybody attacked their staff. Luckily as he was at least temporarily under the radar, Pesticide decided to teleport out of there. But thick trees and mountains blocked him from seeing very far, and it was insanely dangerous to teleport out beyond the range of one's eyes. One might teleport into a mine or a slave cage, into a tree, into solid earth or rock, with fatal results if that happened, or into another Decepticon. He began teleporting in fifty foot jumps around the Decepticon, giving him a wide berth. Although not all Decepticons hated sapient ponies, he knew many did and even those who didn't probably wouldn't be friendly. He wondered if he could get away before the bot started pinging the ground.

Genocider Training Program

Loyal Star remembered a part in his Military Manual that warned him against sharing secrets that could not be counted and said "Sorry, I can't share my secrets with you even for a lot of Energon given in advance. The bot's eyes darkened dramatically and his engine coughed a few times, but rather then fight and end up in trouble, the bot turned and left. Loyal Star knew that he most likely had a new enemy but that whilst he was still on duty he was protected by Decepticon military law. If the bot wanted to harm our outright kill him, he would either have to wait for a chance when it was legally acceptable, like when on leave, or come up with something deceptive enough to have a chance of getting past Milintel. And that was risky, very much so. For fully trained military bots the penalties for attacking another bot on duty might go up to the death penalty. There was a very good military reason for protecting on duty military bots from attacks by other Decepticons. The Decepticon Military could not function properly and conquer the universe if it was divided against itself. All the same, it was best to be careful. Some bots could hold grudges for a long time, and Loyal Star was for now at least shorn of his priestly powers until he proved that he had successfully purged his Ponyism and was a proper Megatronist.

[Victorious Decepticons]

South Dakota

Pesticide assumed the bot's employer would go looking to blast anyone who messed with its employees, but in reality, that wasn't the case at all. Instead, the bot was indirectly threatening slavery to anyone who got in his way. His company would gladly buy any new laborer he brought in, and this was well-known to most who would come around there. Showing the Pickaxe Logo the way he did meant that he was ready to capture both biological and robotic slaves.

When the pony began to teleport, the bot's eyes actually seemed to get wider. Poomf. Bam. The sound was small, but he was sure he'd heard it before! After just a second of thinking, his file system made the match: It was like a super-soft version of the sound of the air displacement when General Skywarp teleported! When the General did it, the noise was ear-splitting thanks to the amount of air that moved, first into the vacuum left in the place he had warped from, and then out of his way when he reappeared. The bot immediately knew that it had to be some sort of sapient biological making the sounds he heard now. He began pinging towards the ground, where the sounds were coming from, and simultaneously retrieved a bag from his upper arm panel. This bag was made of some sort of woven metal threads, but it glowed ever so slightly with an enchantment.

"Here, Bonus Pay, here, Bonus," he called out in a high-pitched voice - the kind some people use to call to shy dogs - as if that was Pesticide's name. The pinging and radar sweeping was constant now, and his detection system ran its scans along the ground as quickly as the bot could make it go. He also turned on his heat sensors, and his view of the world became one of varying heat-signifying colors.

It didn't take long for his heat detection to pick out the shape of a one-horned pony. Immediately, he took a stride in his quarry's direction, expertly covering several yards without tripping on the small saplings that had sprung up since he last cleared this area. Pesticide noticed now that there was what appeared to be a subfloor of solid rock just under the surface - no wonder the Decepticon was able to sit at this particular part of the shore.

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

Genocider Training Program

The copper bot stormed back to his room and let the door bang down. Inside, however, he immediately became calm. He extracted a tiny radio from his arm and began to speak into it.

"The subject of interest has passed the first test, though I doubt his reaction was innate. He paused a little. I think he was looking in his Military Manual..." After getting a response, he returned the radio to its hiding place.

~~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks later, the trainees were ordered to muster up not at the usual airfield, but one used for actually taking off to distant locations. There, a trainer stepped onto a short platform and made an announcement. Today, they would not be doing flight drills. Instead, they were to report to Earth.

"The Bureau of Biological Labor has a surplus of livestock thanks to a major refugee encroachment through the Transdimensional Warp Point," he announced. "Of course, this herd was captured and the slavers attempted to dump it at the Slave Market. The Market, however, already had too much wild stock. Even worse, this herd - thanks to being refugees - was malnourished, sick, and weak. After attempting to broker the slaves themselves, only to have no luck, the slavers just abandoned them. This made them the property of the Bureau, which decided to put out a Clearance bulletin before sending them all off to Biological Rendering as unfit. That's when our procurement division picked them up."

"This has given us the opportunity to perform live training on actual stock. The exercise will be simple from a tactical standpoint: Under labor regulations, large wild herds are kept confined behind tall fences and walls so that they cannot escape back into the wild and establish breeding populations there. All we'll need to do is descend upon them and eliminate them all using Tactic 9 from the module on Removing Confined Populations, so what this exercise is for isn't practice. It's to separate the true Genociders from the edgelords and posers who'll turn to oil sludge the minute they actually have to kill something."

At this point, the trainer activated a holograph that showed the target area, the layout, and a few of the actual targets. They were dirty, sweaty, pathetic-looking actual refugees from the other side of the Transdimensional Warp Point, and the group contained all of the life stages of humanity, ranging from little babies all the way up to a few oldsters. Of course, most of them were between 15 and 50, since the rigors of traveling across an ocean in a stolen, understocked, and overcrowded cruise ship had naturally culled many of the outliers through thirst, starvation, and disease.

Most of these humans looked quite worried - they didn't know exactly what was to come, but they could "read the handwriting on the wall" just by looking at their current situation: They were weak foreigners in hostile territory, openly considered useless, and now, they were penned up. That generally meant a genocide was incoming, and it didn't really matter to them whether it came via goosestepping soldiers and gas, big wild men with machetes, or the somehow-living machinery they had encountered for the first time just days ago.

"Get yourselves geared up. We leave for this live training mission in one hour." The trainer announced, and dismissed the trainees. This would not be the main training mission, but it would be a good way to weed out the secretly-soft "edgelords" who really weren't cut out for the Battalion. This trainer wasn't outright hostile to Loyal Star, but he had still bet that when it came time to do the real thing, the priest would wimp out.

[Vallermoore]

South Dakota

Pesticide had the wrong idea about things. By flashing up his pickaxe like a reptile displaying a threat display the bot was threatening slavery to anybody, biological or robot, who he could capture. Teleporting was also a mistake, as the bot's ears caught the sound and realized what it was from when he had seen General Skywarp teleport. He shifted his pinging to the ground, which revealed something small and alive. Undoing a metal bag meant for holding magical creatures until they could be chipped, he spoke in Equine, having watched over pony slaves in the past. "Here, Bonus Pay, here, Bonus." He switched on his heat detection mode and soon uncovered a unicorn.

Pesticide had no intention of getting caught, but with no high buildings to warp too and no high hills in sight, he was in real danger. He could teleport into the middle of the lake, . He then had an idea. What if he teleported not himself, but an electrical bolt, straight into the circuits of that bot, past his many armour layers? If he could get it into the wires in the centre of that bot, it would hopefully short him out and either banish him to a spare or even-if it worked before he could mind transfer out-kill him outright. If he as a pony could kill a Decepticon hundreds of times his size, it would surely impress Domintel and through them Immigration. But it was risky. There was a good reason for not combining spells except in an emergency. The spell might fail, it might burn his horn out for days or longer, it might even fry him instead. It might make his second plan, teleporting into the centre of the lake where the bot was unlikely to be able to follow, unusable. He started weaving together a teleportation and lightning spell, and as the bot reached down towards him, he cast it and hoped for the best. A bolt of lighting appeared from his horn and vanished. He very much hoped it would appear where he wanted it, inside the middle of the bot where it's most important parts were.

Genocider Training Program

The copper bot was either with Milintel or Domintel most likely.

*****
The days went by until the trainees were summoned to a new airfield and told that they were to report to Earth for an actual real small scale genocide.

Loyal Star wondered if there would be sapient ponies amongst the refugees, and decided that he needed to harden his fuel pump up quickly and do his duty for the Decepticon Nation. The humans (as it turned out there were no ponies) were stuck in a large enclosure, and were hungry, dirty, and not in good shape, totally unfit for mine labour. In the wait period, there would be a few bots who tried to transfer somewhere else. A few outright deserted, and they would soon find that desertion from the Decepticon Military was always a capital offense. Loyal Star knew if he didn't want to be in deep trouble with High Priest Warfire he would have to stay and did. Soon enough they flew over at FTL to the area, dropped out of FTL and General Carjack gave an order. "Genociders-to-be, show no mercy. None of them are Megatronists or undercover Forintel bots. KILL THEM ALLLLLLL!"

Loyal Star, who had been placed in one of the front ranks where General Carjack could keep an eye on him, opened fire with the rest after transforming, his blasters vaporizing some and going straight through others. The humans had only a few slings and stones to fight back with, and it was not long before the entire lot was dead or dying, and it was just a matter of sifting through the bodies until the last one had died. The General opened fire as well of course. Decepticon Generals did not sit in the rear behind a desk issuing orders to troops that they hardly ever saw.

"Genociders, it will not be long before you are to report to the Military Painters who will formally paint the Skull and Wrenches symbol onto your wings, you have earned the right to bear the symbol on operations, in the barracks and on leave. The existence of this battalion is no secret; we want others to know about it. Unlike biologicals we don't cover up our massacres. Tomorrow we will refuel for our first proper mission, this time against a planet of troublesome and strongly Harmonist ponies and humans who have adopted the Pony Way. Many of these humans wish they were ponies. When the Pony Way meets ours, our one will prevail," the General told them. Loyal Star showed no sign of it outwardly, but deep inside his mind boards he felt a bit ill at the thought of killing ponies and foals who bore no cutie mark. Still, he had willingly divested his pony shell to join the Decepticons, and he needed to prove himself worthy of his Metal. His punishment and testing would not last forever and one day he would be permitted to don the swirling paint of the Decepticon Priesthood once more.

[Victorious Decepticons]

South Dakota

Two screams ripped through the forest, one loud and clearly mechanical, and the other also surprisingly loud but clearly biological. Shortly thereafter, there was the crashing of tree branches and a muffled clang. After that, the engine noise that had been going on all day had stopped, and some very quiet whimpering was all that remained.

Pesticide had taken out the fisherbot's boards - first the motion-boards, and then after the lightning traveled up the main command cable, the mind-boards. Some smoke also came from a shoulder - where this bot had hidden his personality chip. All in all, warping lightning right past his Faraday cage had been a very effective and deadly tactic. The only problem was Pesticide's own overloaded horn, which was now scorched, but not devastated. It would take a few days at least for that to heal...

After the pain subsided enough for him to regain his senses, Pesticide looked around. He was now effectively in possession of 100 lbs of fish, which had been intended to supplement the diets of slaves. Clearly, there was some kind of mine nearby. Then, he looked at the fallen robot. Right now, it was totally offline - apparently, a useless hunk of steel that would become a forest relic if nobody came to get it.

But that was right now. With the proper skills, and a way to get into the motion-board area, he could potentially solder an entirely new set of traces onto it and have himself the vehicle of a lifetime - one that could walk anywhere, or if transformed, fly instead. The only catch was that it likely didn't even have a full tank of Energon, and when that was out, he'd have to either get more or start hoofing it. There was also the problem of trying to drive a body like this instead of actually being it. It would surely be very awkward, especially since it was the cockpit, rather than the head, that he'd have to do it from. In robot mode, this area was vertical - making it so that his natural body inclination would be looking upward rather than outward.

Of course, if he decided to try this plan, he would first need tools. He knew that the standard was for a Decepticon to keep a field repair kit behind a calf panel, and if fully equipped, even more equipment would be in the other calf - likely enough to sufficiently repair the lightning damage, at least for the most essential parts. Pesticide also realized that anything in there would be Decepticon-sized, so even he could get in, he wouldn't be using that soldering iron like a pen, or the surely-present spool of copper tracing in his little hoof.

He pondered whether or not it would be worth it to commit the most impressive of all grand thefts (to him), that of a full-fledged Decepticon body, or just go ahead and walk. Stealing the form would surely have plenty of logistical problems to deal with.

~~~~~~~~~~

Hours later, the mine would realize that their fisherbot was not coming back nor calling in. For now, they assumed that he had just decided to ditch the job - after all, there was nothing that could beat a Decepticon here in Fracking and Coal Region 10, or at least, so they thought...

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

Genocider Training

Leader Megatron remote-viewed the pre-mission with a bit of trepidation. He could detect Loyal Star's remaining hesitancy and wanted to smack it out of him somehow. The former pony still was feeling as though he was at least partially part of the same group as the targets - that's what caused the milliseconds of delay Megatron spotted whenever Loyal Star opened fire. Was it too much empathy, or had the Immigration Debugger failed to properly change Loyal Star's "Species Identification" code? Programatically, Loyal Star was supposed to see himself only as a Decepticon, and other species belonged in the same category as mice. Yet if the Base Code itself wasn't calling for that, all of the training in the universe wouldn't change it. He would require a proper patch.

Megatron put through an order to the Main Military Base to haul Loyal Star in to have this part of his Code examined, and if necessary, fixed. As in most militaries, there was no right of refusal for orders of this sort, let alone something as basic as ensuring that a Decepticon identified as a member of the Decepticon species and not some inferior one.

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

Back at the base, the troops were ordered straight into the final preparations for the full genocide mission. The painting-on of the Skulls and Wrenches, it turned out, would only happen AFTER this. This, too, was considered a training mission even though it involved actual foreigners. "These targets are too weak to be considered a full mission," trainers explained. "Plus, only those who actually go through with a proper invasionary genocide, rather than a simple pest clean-up, get to wear the most fearsome Symbols in the Decepticon Military."

Though the trainers didn't say so, there was another reason for keeping these trainees otherwise unmarked: They were still too unpracticed for the General to be sure of them. If they turned out to be mistake-prone in the heat of actual battle, he didn't want that reflecting on his Battalion.

The preparations were simple, but numerous: Everyone had to fully restock his field repair kit, obtain and stow a piece of a field still, oil all of their joints, change their oil and antifreeze, have a good shower, and then apply 5 coats of hard-shell wax. Then they would have a few refresher flight drills even though they'd been drilling for almost a month already. Finally, they would be ready - both mechanically and visually - to take the target planet as their staging area for future raids.

One of the other would-be Genociders came over to Loyal Star, who looked a bit pensive. "What are you worried about?!" He said in a hearty way. "Tomorrow we go to make our first mark! To strike fear into the universe and make it bow, with it knowing that it will be easily terminated if it does not! People on the next planet over will whisper stories of us in hushed and fearful tones...of perfect, shining robots who descended on the helpless world, and without hesitation, cleansed it of its inferiority and made it ours." His eyes shined and all but danced at the thought of what he was about to do. "That place next door won't dare to oppose our relentless raids after their astronomers see what we've done to the first one. They'll probably even GIVE us every last drop of oil rather than face our wrath!! It'll be beautiful - absolutely beautiful!!" He thrust his head back with a leering smile, the bloodlust within him baying for the hunt.

If Loyal Star asked around, he would find that this bot had named himself Hydraulic Burn, and he already had 100 kills to his name. The kills were all of Decepticons, and done after his targets' hydraulic pumps had "mysteriously" burned out and left them immobile. He was not motivated by a desire for vengeance - he was a serial killer who thought of himself as a hunter and his quarry as dangerous prey. He had, in fact, tended to target strong targets as if to show his superiority to mere Scroungers.

After the 100th one, DomIntel had given him the ultimatum: Accept a patch to turn his murderous desires against non-Decepticons and join the Genocide Battalion, or lose the protection of the agency's secrecy and be doxxed by an anonymous source. Knowing that being doxxed would result in the immediate arrival of a vengeful mob of the Line members and friends of the slain, and knowing that he couldn't beat that many opponents at once, he had entered Genocider training. Patching left his desire to kill completely intact, but as promised, he now enjoyed seeing biological bodies vaporize under the unstoppable power of his Mil-Spec Blasters and their blood spill from under his feet.

[Vallermoore]

South Dakota

Pesticide screamed in agony, as the mixed spell had partly damaged his horn and it felt like it was hit with a sword. However, the robot that was reaching down to grab him and bag him up screamed as well. Pony magic lightning under normal circumstances merely hurt Decepticons a little, like a mild electric shock, because of the Faraday cage that protected them. But when the lightning was teleported right inside the circuits and wires inside the Decepticon, it shorted everything out. The motion boards, the mind boards, the personality chip-all was fried in seconds, sending the unfortunate Decepticon to the afterlife, and the inert body toppled to the ground. Pesticide managed to rear up and give a little whinny of joy, despite the pain he was in. He had beaten a mighty Decepticon that was large enough to scoop him up with one hand. In human terms, it would be like a small tarantula managing to kill an adult human. Surely, he thought, this would impress Scope and Gatekeeper-if he survived long enough to meet them. He certainly couldn't do that again any time soon. Mixing spells was dangerous which was why unicorns didn't do it, but the alternative was either death, or mine enslavement for the rest of his life. If he heard engine noises again, he'd just hide.

He cooked some fish on some of the hottest metal and ate it, then stuffed his saddlebags full of fish that would need to be eaten raw, as a fire could give his position away, or turn into a wildfire, or both. If he had a fridge, he would be able to eat fish until his test was over, as it was he could eat fish that day, and most likely the next day too-but after that, the stink would warn him to dump the fish or maybe use it as bait to catch something. Eating rotten food might kill him out here but for now the fish was fresh. And as a pony, he could eat grass and survive on that as well. He did consider trying to reactivate the Decepticon and if his horn had been unhurt, he could have done it and flown it as his own private warplane as far as Yellowstone. But he didn't want to risk it with a sore horn, or be around if other Decepticons came looking for this one. After having a quick laugh at the dead bot, he got out of there at a gallop, and later ate some still fresh raw fish and spent time with a herd of wild ponies. If he dumped his saddlebags in an emergency and covered up his cutie mark with a tail he could pass as a non-sapient pony. That night he found some soft and apparently safe moss to sleep on-at least, no visible insects were present anyway, and none came out when he poked it. Some mosses were likely to be safe for sleeping on, but others might be toxic and cause rashes, have insects deep within them, or at least cause some very frightening dreams, and he didn't know the moss he was sleeping on.

*****
Genocider Training

Leader Megatron felt his thoughts go back to Loyal Star. When he had been turned into a human by that infernal Flesh God and then killed, he thought that his mighty Decepticon Empire would tear itself apart without him in civil war to the last bot. Although physically his spirit had been in heaven, mentally he had been deeply depressed. And then when he found that this until now unknown bot Loyal Star had not just brought him back, but was willing if he had to, to die for him so that Megatron could live and rule again-even as a God, he had been impressed. Clearly pony names fit the individual pony like a well-made glove to a hand, and loyalty was one of the strongest of the Decepticon virtues. In a world full of conniving, it's relative rarity gave it value. He realized that he didn't want Loyal Star to fail and be purged in the fire of a foundry as a heretic. He wanted him to succeed and, some day, become the Head Priest of a planet once more. But something was wrong, and perhaps, as the first pony to immigrate successfully, something went unintentionally wrong when he was ported. He sent orders for Debugging to fix it.
In biological militaries, being in effect taken to a mental hospital could wreck a military career and sometimes lead to a medical discharge as well as being shameful, but in the Decepticon Military it was not seen that way and attracted no punishment. It was vital that Decepticon mind boards could work well, and because of this bots being Debugged had unique privileges that existed at no other time.

Their foes were not allowed to barge in and blast them whilst they were defenceless, Debuggers had to be themselves honest and free of the normal ever-present corruption-no hacking of their patients was tolerated, and the contents of the patient's mind boards, even if the thoughts were treason, were not to be disclosed even to Domintel or Milintel, nor could Domintel or Milintel force the issue. This was because if bots could not safely Debug, they wouldn't Debug, and given enough time, the Decepticon Nation would collapse into insanity.

Before Loyal Star could answer the other bot he was summoned to Debugging-on Megatron's orders. That last bit was to stop General Carjack getting angry at having to delay the attack a little so Loyal Star could be Debugged. If he still got angry over that issue, it would mean he was angry at Megatron-and even the Genocider knew that Megatron could, if he wanted to, kill him. Megatron only once in his long life had to kill a High General-High General StarScream, and the others had got the message loud and clear. At the very top, just like through the rest of Decepticon society, power rested ultimately on force and the rule of the Strong.

Soon enough the Debugger got to work and after turning Loyal Star off, found the problem. Instead of identifying as a Decepticon, like he should have done, he had somehow been ported as a Deceptipony and was at least partly seeing himself as a robot pony. That needed to be fixed, and quickly, as otherwise it would be a major headache and a bane for his whole life. The Debugger felt a bit sorry for what he must have been going through-species dysphoria was not something he'd wish on any bot, even bots that he didn't like very much.

[Victorious Decepticons]

South Dakota

Pesticide laughed at the defeated fisher-miner and decided to take off further into the woods. Once he decided to lay down, he took a few moments to feel the pride of accomplishment. Others were so terrified of Decepticons that they didn't even dare approach, but HE had beaten one in single combat! The fact that only losers would take that low-level of a position at a mine didn't come to mind. He had trounced someone the size of a building! That was worth boasting about no matter the bot's skill level.

As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered about the moss, but fortunately, it was fairly standard stuff. There were a few ticks hiding in it, and they made their way out and attached themselves to the pony's side, but there weren't so many as to be more than an annoyance for him to have to deal with once he woke up.

What he didn't expect was to be waking up so soon. A massive crashing of 20-foot-tall young trees, footsteps, and grumbling in Binary made a very effective alarm, however, and Pesticide found himself blinking into the pitch dark of the forest. Not too close - but not all that far in the distance - he spotted two glowing red eye panels bobbing along with the sound of the big robotic feet. Someone had come, if not for the fallen bot, for the fish the mine had been wanting.

The bot, not even considering that his co-worker had been killed rather than just ditching his job in order to go raid instead, passed by without pause. He wasn't even looking for an existing path, much less a pony, and he barged on through toward his destination with angry determination.

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

Main Military Base
Debugging Center

Loyal Star regained consciousness not with the slow wake-up of a biological, but with the instant-on one would expect of a being based purely on electronics and machinery. While this was normal, he was not quite used to it, especially when his own system hadn't triggered it. Still, he handled the somewhat weird sensation fine enough and was soon getting the report from the Debugger.

"I found that Immigration had not turned off all of your old pony identifiers, so I went ahead and did that. Now, you will finally see yourself as a Decepticon and not have your old Code giving you conflicting instincts. Of course, you'll also now see ponies and other biologicals as they are: As other species, no more fit for self-rule or even existence than any other kind of xenospecies you'd encounter."

"Now, report back to your unit. For some reason, they're waiting for you. In most cases, they would've just made you wait through the next training course and take your final then."

As ordered, Loyal Star went back to the Genocider Training area. A trainer greeted him hastily and ordered him to finish getting ready and to not forget to drink all of the Energon he could hold. The other bots were mingling in a big group waiting for the order to form up.

Soon enough, Loyal Star was ready. Once back outside, trainers gave that form-up order and General Carjack came out to give a rousing, but short, speech. In his peripheral vision, Loyal Star could see Hydraulic Burn grinning and revving eagerly.

As soon as the speech was over, the entire unit took a running leap into the sky, transformed, and headed into space. Even though there were now less than 100 trainees, the spectacle of an entire big group of Decepticons taking flight was awe-inspiring and impressive, and a few new conscripts from other units paused what they were doing to watch. Soon enough, the would-be Genociders would arrive above the atmosphere of the target planet, which they were to simply descend on and start blasting as soon as they got in range.

That planet's biggest military base was one of the only specific targets, and the Decepticons' arrival was timed so that it would be facing their way when they arrived. It was known to have some SAMs - no old-fashioned cannons - and some shorter-range AA guns, but that was it. Making sure to get rid of that annoyance would ensure that, unless there was some sort of outside intervention, the rest of the mission would go easy.

[Vallermoore]

South Dakota

As Pesticide snuggled down, he felt hugely pleased with himself. Without even using the firearm he had in a saddlebag (a firearm that would be useless against a full-size Decepticon anyway) he had single handily killed a robot that towered above him. True, it might not be one of the highest ranking of bots, but it was still like the old fairy tales of ponies single handedly killing dragons. He felt very proud. He was just going to sleep under the stars when he heard angry grumbling in Binary, and another robot with dim eyes walked right past his hiding place. As it turned out the bot also missed the body of the other bot, as he was not looking for him, and was grumbling about the other bot leaving without warning, no doubt to go and raid somewhere. As soon as Pesticide fell asleep, three ticks came out and bit him. In the morning he angrily pulled them off and had a good scratch. As it turned out, it would cause an infection, but it was not one that would suddenly appear but one that would only show up gradually over time. Also it was not MRSA or something else that was deadly serious, although it would cause some pain later on. He carried on walking, not encountering any more Decepticons (not counting the concealed Domintel agents that had watched him from the start and saw him slay the fisherbot. He had some more fish, which would stay fresh for at least a few more hours before he'd have to dump what he hadn't managed to eat.

Decepticon Afterlife

After several hours an Afterlife bot showed up for a rather embarrassed bot who had no friends to restore him and had slain his (formerly biological) Coder for acting like biological Coders did. If bots could blush he would be scarlet with embarrassment. "Did I really get killed by a single....pony? Does that mean my afterlife will be very unpleasant?" he asked the Afterlife bot.

Main Military Base
Debugging Center

When Loyal Star woke up, he was still aware that he had once been a pony and had his old pony memories intact, but he felt so powerful. Biological life to him was like mice at best and nasty little wasps at best. The Debugger explained "I found that Immigration had not turned off all of your old pony identifiers, so I went ahead and did that. Now, you will finally see yourself as a Decepticon and not have your old Code giving you conflicting instincts. Of course, you'll also now see ponies and other biologicals as they are: As other species, no more fit for self-rule or even existence than any other kind of xenospecies you'd encounter."

He bowed a deep bow of thanks. "Thank you, no wonder I've been acting strangely for a Decepticon, I was thinking of myself as a pony the whole time!"

"Now, report back to your unit. For some reason, they're waiting for you. In most cases, they would've just made you wait through the next training course and take your final then."

Loyal Star went back to his unit and got ready and General Carjack got them formed up, told them there were almost certainly no cannons to face (which got a big cheer from those who had faced cannon batteries and got injured in the past) and gave them a rousing speech against the Pony Menace. As they flew to the planet Loyal Star was perfectly happy to fly along with them. When they went into the attack, two bots were SAMed out of the sky and one was lightly injured, but the rest were able to destroy the military base very quickly. Bullets and magical blasts from the ground had almost no effect, and fortunately no unicorns did what Pesticide had done. With the base gone, Loyal Star had an idea. "If you wish to surrender," he said in Equine loudly to the ponies it, "then enter your temples and stay there." Even as Carjack raised his blasters at Loyal Star, he said in Binary (and only just in time to avoid becoming a notch on the General's blasters) "This will make it easier to kill them. When the temples are packed with ponies and pony loving humans, we can kill a lot of them all at once." What he said did make quite a bit of sense, at least, enough not to be automatically blasted, and often initiative in a battle situation was welcome. Carjack was in two minds-it certainly would be helpful to concentrate as many ponies as possible together, and would make things easier; but the problem was that Loyal Star hadn't brought the idea up with him first which in a battle situation would have been easy enough to do. Unlike human or pony generals, Decepticon generals didn't hate the idea of talking to those who were not themselves high ranking officers.

Whilst the General probably would have agreed with the idea as a good one, Loyal Star was, in a way, acting like a General rather then a raw recruit. Whilst outright killing him for an OK idea would be too much punishment as it would damage the whole unit's ability to take the initiative, Loyal Star was dangerously close to ending up like MasterBlaster did when he gave unwanted advice to General Soundwave, with some penal time. There was a fine line between showing initiative which was a big plus, and acting like an officer when one was not, which was a big minus. If Loyal Star's idea was a big success, Carjack might forgive him enough to just give him a dressing down after the battle and a dire warning to put such ideas to the officer in command first rather then just announcing it. If it failed, Loyal Star could expect anything from losing a body, to penal time, to death if Carjack was angry enough. Luckily for Loyal Star, most of the ponies did what he said, and when they had packed the temples, Loyal Star and the others could blast or just pull over the temples and blast any pony that survived. It took many hours to kill those few ponies who had avoided the temples and whilst the operation was still going on, Carjack held off on disciplining the clever but impertinent Priest. Once the last pony and human had been blasted, squashed, exploded or choked, and the last changeling had been detected with changeling-finding goggles and also despatched (where there were large numbers of ponies, there were always changelings), General Carjack called the unit together, and then beckoned Loyal Star forward.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The Targeted Planet

Even with 100 Genociders, it was still a planet they were attacking, so it took quite a long time to wipe out all of the sapient life. Due to not having set up supply lines in advance, they had to take over the biggest fuel depot and then get out their field stills to refine the discovered gasoline up to Energon grade, and for a while, there was a lull in the slaughter. However, Decepticons in general had plenty of experience at making fuel out of whatever was around, and the Military did a very good job of teaching all new conscripts exactly how to do it in the field and in a hurry. Before long, the portable stacks were done with their work, the Energon had been drunk, and the still pieces were all stowed back with the soldiers who had brought them. Far, far away, terrified ponies looked on through binoculars, wondering what they had done to bring down the apocalypse.

Some of the people who had avoided the temples laughed a little when those who went into them were very easily exterminated. Those outside had figured it was a trick leading to a fast ticket to death and instead gone into the woods or the basements of the houses. Alas, they didn't get to chuckle for long as the Trainee Genociders took a formation that Carjack ordered and began to steamroll their way across the landscape in huge swaths, exterminating all sapients in their path.

Finally, the reason only 100 bots were sent to take a planet became clear: Most of the thing was covered with at least several feet of water - enough to drown a pony and force a human to swim, and further from the land, deep like an ocean. It wasn't like Earth, which looks like mostly water from space but still has millions of miles of land to cover once you get down there. Instead, it turned out to have only enough land to make up the landmass of Australia if you put it all together - and it wasn't all together, but an archipelago-like collection of islands. It was therefore fairly easy to go from one large island after another and delete the vast majority of the targets, many of whom were in cities. Pods of humans and ponies were all but marooned on each one, unable to leave theirs in any short order. A few passenger planes did go up, but they also went back down very quickly thanks to all of the fighter jet-bots already in the sky. A couple of cruise ships were also quickly sunk thanks to being blasted all the way through their hulls from blaster-fire sent straight down through their decks from above. We have no need for a navy, Decepticon commanders had always said, and it was certainly true in this case.

Rather than rest once the job seemed to be done, General Carjack ordered them to immediately form into "mop-up units." This would avoid the very nettlesome problem of the targets having hours in which to hide themselves well. The units were groups of 3 bots each who would fly low and slow with all of their detection systems on in order to scan out as many survivors as possible. Of course, any that were found were to be dispatched.

"It's very hard to get a perfect score on these missions," Carjack said over the radio, a grumble clearly audible in his voice. "But we can come extremely close. In cities, scan through all of the rubble, in and around - and under - big garbage bins, and in the drainage systems and sewers. In the rural, be sure to check every basement and be on the lookout for buried concrete bunkers, vents sticking out of what seems to be otherwise-plain ground, and more-obvious constructs like cellars. And then there are the woods and marshes. As you learned in Basic, the hardest things about these is getting through them. If you scan anybody hiding in those places, try to hit them from the air, using your non-visual systems to aim. We want to avoid having to pick through that garbage terrain! But if all else fails, we'll light those places up. Leader Megatron said he wanted this planet blanked out, and it's not wildlife I'm attached to, so we can go ahead and use the most efficient methods!"

All through the night and the next day, the tired Trainee Genociders continued their work. Loyal Star happened upon one family in a cellar, and even with his patch, hesitated just a bit before dispatching them - but no more than a human would do if finding a family of cute mice. They would still be mice - vermin to exterminate - and the deed would be done. Soon enough, it was, and there was nothing but a smoking crater where the cellar and the accompanying house had been.

Finally, at dusk, Carjack made a flight over the woodsy areas. As he expected, his heat detection picked up at least a few of both humans and ponies among the trees on every island. They hid well, but thanks to his experience on Earth, he knew exactly what to look for. He quickly put in an order for Military cargo-bots from the Genocide Battalion to fill their reservoirs with the lowest of a combo Low Standard Energon and foam, and come outfitted with sprayers meant for handling that mixture.

"There will be a two-hour rest while we await some specialized cleanup crew," Carjack announced over the radio. "For now, everyone assemble."

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

Once everyone was assembled, he gave a short speech about how the mission was almost complete but not yet done, and warned that everyone should still remain on guard. "It only takes one person to have escaped with something that works to cause us a whole lot of aggravation. So always be careful. Usually there is nobody who stands a chance. But we must never assume for that," he said at the end.

Finally, he called Loyal Star over and the two walked far from the big group. Then, Carjack suddenly stopped, spun around, and backhanded the overambitious bot with his full force. "How dare you spontaneously give an order to the targets - let alone one that caused the entire group to have to change my already-ordered tactics! You know that wasn't in the battle plan!!!" He now let off a blast that scorched through about a third of Loyal Star's chest armor. "You just showed up here and you're not even a real Genocider candidate; you don't get to say anything like that!!! You just obey completely until your time is up and then get outta my face!!!" He blasted him again, putting a new melt-mark next to the other. Loyal Star's internal temperature crept up as the heat of Carjack's blasts slowly made it through his armor, and hidden chest fans automatically kicked on to try to dissipate it.

"That was also unstrategic as all hell!" Carjack went on. "We hadn't scouted those temples. What if they were made like Temples of Megatron?! Then we would have ended up having to attack armed forts with motivated defenders! Your plan worked, but if you act rashly like that, one day you're gonna get a surprise package that you didn't want to open! "

"You are very lucky that your conscription ends after this mission. Otherwise you would polishing my feet for the next six months! Or perhaps BEING my feet!" He wouldn't have been the first to get melted down and turned into a few sets of Carjack's boot-like feet. The General quite enjoyed doing that to those who displeased him, for it let him literally step on their dead bodies with every stride.

Carjack dismissed him without granting permission for him to fix the damage. Everyone would see that Loyal Star had been blasted by the General, and that the blasts could easily have been delivered at a strength that would have cut through all of his armor. As Loyal Star went back to the group, a spray of liquid nitrogen automatically activated inside his chest to protect his motion-boards and connections from the heat still coming in from his outer armor. Without this emergency cooling, Loyal Star's motion boards would have shut down for hours until they cooled on their own.

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

Off in the distance, one scorched and shellshocked pony watched the scene. Loyal Star caught sight of the flash of Carjack's blaster as he dispatched it without a thought. The aim was perfect and precise despite his mind clearly being on Loyal Star's performance, and how angry he was about this complete n00b causing a tactics alteration without so much as a warning. Did that ponybot not know that things could have gone horribly wrong?! Ordering the targets into shelters...gaaahh... *He literally facepalmed, leaving only a couple of gaps between his fingers to watch for enemies through* It only worked out because of blind luck. I hate relying on 'luck.' It's garbage. Everything should be done by skill. Skill can be practiced, altered, re-practiced, etc.

At least there are only two days left. Then I can unload this putz and put in my report. Carjack stalked off to where that one pony had been. Where there was one survivor, there were always more. Herd animals, including humans, always huddled together.

Not long after, loud blasting, stomping, and screaming was heard - and then, silence.

[Vallermoore]

The Targeted Planet


The planet was mainly a water planet, with a lot of mostly smallish islands on it, and most ponies were not very good swimmers. Of course there were boats and ships but they could be sunk by blasting very easily. Loyal Star uncovered a family of ponies a cellar and killed them all, including the foals without cutie marks. When there were only scattered groups of ponies and humans hiding in the woods, General Carjack called everyone together, explained how hard it was to carry out a complete genocide, praised them for their hard work, and then called Loyal Star to come over and walk with him. Not long afterwards, he turned, his red eyes dark crimson with anger, and punched Loyal Star in the jaw as hard as he could. With a loud clang Loyal Star went down, but got up at once. If almost any other bot had done that to him, Loyal Star would have been blasting in a duel to the body, but this was High General Carjack the Genocider, his superior, protected both by the treason laws (at least when on duty anyway) and by strong blasters and immensely strong armour. .

"How dare you spontaneously give an order to the targets - let alone one that caused the entire group to have to change my already-ordered tactics! You know that wasn't in the battle plan!!!" Carjack blasted Loyal Star but left his jammer off and stopped short of destroying his body. "You just showed up here and you're not even a real Genocider candidate; you don't get to say anything like that!!! You just obey completely until your time is up and then get outta my face!!!" Carjack despised the former pony and part wanted to outright kill him, but Loyal Star had not tried to stop or hamper the genocide in any way, only to help it, and also if he outright killed him, he thought he might just end up with Megatron's annoyance aimed at him. And no sane bot wanted to anger their God. However, he certainly would make an example of him. He let loose another non-deadly but painful blast. "That was also unstrategic as all hell! We hadn't scouted those temples. What if they were made like Temples of Megatron?! Then we would have ended up having to attack armed forts with motivated defenders! Your plan worked, but if you act rashly like that, one day you're gonna get a surprise package that you didn't want to open! You are very lucky that your conscription ends after this mission. Otherwise you would be polishing my feet for the next six months! Or perhaps BEING my feet! Don't repair yourself or get repaired by a military mechanic until we get back to Cybertron. Your wounds will show the other bots what happens to mouthy soldiers who think they are officers. Dismissed."

"Yes Sir." Turning down his pain sensations to a dull ache, Loyal Star got back to the others feeling lucky to be allowed to survive. Once trained properly, Decepticon military law was strict and Decepticon generals often even stricter.

It would be quite a while before they got back to Cybertron and a military mechanic fixed Loyal Star's part blasted body before he awaited Carjack's report.

South Dakota

Pesticide managed to stay clear of Decepticons, but by the time his stint of survival came to an end he had several infected sores and needed to drink a lot from a lake. On the plus side, his horn had recovered. When a bot came and flew him back, and he ended up in front of Scope and Gatekeeper, despite his sores they were smiling with glowing eyes.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Field Camp, Targeted Planet

To Loyal Star's surprise, the others weren't all that shocked that Carjack had done that. It turned out that some of them had served in his division of regulars during their prior conscription stints and were more used to his ways.

"Carjack is probably the most hardassed High General next to Megatron," he was told. "Remember, he used to be a human. Their militaries are very hierarchical and adverse to sudden changes like that. While Carjack can deal with the controlled chaos of a full operation, you won't see him allowing nearly as much as you caused when it's just him and a Genocider group. Then, it's all about precision. 'Mechanized destruction,' as he sometimes says. In short, we're supposed to go and mow them down. Do you ever see a lawnmower order grass to do anything? No. It just mows whatever is in its path. And these little mopping-up operations -" He waved in the direction of the sound of some sporadic blaster fire - "They're the weed eaters that come after the mowing is over."

Another bot came over and sat down. Loyal Star noticed that across the bottom of his wings (which would be the leading edge in plane mode), there were 359 little lines drawn. He correctly assumed that each one signified a prior kill. "One of the goals of a Genocider formation is to seem like an unstoppable doom grinder that does not deviate from its goal. The enemy should feel both helpless and hopeless before us. Usually, some are allowed to 'escape' from their rear lines in order to tell other cities and towns of our horrifying arrival so that those other places can surrender to the wider military. Carjack believes this will happen best if the targets see us as a well-coordinated force" This new bot said. "Of course, we do have to keep some chaos in our tactics, or else the defenders may figure out the pattern and get extra flukes in."

Off in the distance, the copper bot from earlier listened in on everything - not just the ones talking to Loyal Star, but all who were within earshot.

Finally, General Carjack and some trainers returned from nearby mopping-up operations and gave the command to go ahead and defrag. The troops, who had now been up for two days, wasted no time in assuming rest positions (some of which didn't seem all that restful) and putting through their defrag commands. A few, however, were assigned guard duty to ensure that no enemies - either from this planet or another one - would be able to get the drop on them. Soon, the air was filled with the sound of slowly-idling engines, and the sets of red eyes went dark. The guards also darkened their eyes in order to better hide their positions from cursory visual scans.

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

Decepticon-Occupied Afterlives

Without much warning, several million souls hit the chipping lanes and caused a horde of Decepticon loyalists to spring to work. By now, some of the chippers recognized the pattern. "Carjack's at it again!" They yelled to each other as they worked quickly, hoping that the new arrivals would remain disoriented long enough for them to get the job done without much trouble. Some would be sure to interrogate the new arrivals soon in order to find out what was going on back in the mundus.

"It's about time," someone called back. "We were getting low on miners, and I just sat on my waxer by accident the other day!

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

Afterlife Waiting Area

After a long wait, a light gray Afterlife Administrator appeared.

"Your file has been reviewed, and you will be going to the Neutral Realm," he announced. "Your life has been marked by a lack of motivation, and ended in an embarrassing way. However, you were always a Decepticon - never disloyal, despite having only a 'meh' attitude toward the new Megatronist religion. All in all, you've been unremarkable. This spares you the agony of Punishment, but precludes you from the joys of Pleasure."

"Normally, you would come with me for your position assignment now, which in this case is to be within earshot of some of the most talkative connivers. This will give you the chance to listen in on how more-skilled Decepticons go about things. However, there is something I want you to see first."

One of the screens switched from its view of the Neutral Realm to Earth's living realm. There, the bot could see his old body shambling its way to his former worksite.

"There isn't enough functionality left in its boards to recall your soul to it, so it is now all but mindless. It is a zombie now. Your old co-workers are in for a surprise. I thought you might like to know." Said the Administrator.

The now-dead bot laughed. He was indeed glad to know, and enjoyed imagining what chaos would erupt when the body got to its destination. While he didn't hate his co-workers, he did think it would be funny when they found out what was up by surprise.

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

Targeted Planet

A few hours later, as the sun shone its mid-morning light over a strange pink sky, it began to happen: The annual Zombie Event. Burned pony bodies, gory ones that had been half stepped on, and ones who had gotten their necks wrung all rose up and formed into massive hordes. Along with these came the natural dead: Earth ponies who had died in times past and were now in varying states of decay. They saw the others and somehow realized that these big constructs were the target, and simply followed along without much (if any) reasoning.

"Uh...General..." One of the guards said, coming over to Carjack, who was completely zonked out at this time of day. The General heard nothing, having turned off his audio circuits in order to avoid being woken up by irrelevant non-reports and the general noise of a military camp. This meant that the watchman had to now take his life in his hands. He would have to do something physical to awaken the general.

Suddenly, a large rock - one that could only have been thrown by a Decepticon or a catapult-type device - bonged off Carjack's chest. The reaction was instant. Full-powered, double-barreled blaster fire went in the precise direction the projectile had come from, and the pattern was in the T-shape meant to cut a Decepticon's mind and motion boards at the same time. Carjack didn't care who it was or why he'd woken him up! The piece of crap would be going back to the Main Base as data packets!!

Luckily for the watchman, tales of this type of response had been common during his prior two stints as a regular soldier. He was well off to the side, and as Carjack gained a bit of his senses, he saw that he'd actually destroyed a slingshot that had been set up between two large trees. Its remains hung, still flaming, from the trunks. Of course, this just caused him to start pinging since he knew that whoever shot the thing off had to be close.

"ZOMBIES ARISE!" The watchman yelled over. He was using his size-and-density changer to be half of his normal size, in hopes that any other auto-aimed fire would go above his head.

Immediately, the deadly blasters trained themselves on his current size and location based on the angle the sound of his voice came from, and the command to fire was all but put through when Carjack's mind realized he actually had something important to say. The General stormed over, still bull-raged about the sudden awakening, and demanded a repeat.

"Z-zombies arise, sir," the watchman repeated fearfully - fearful of the General, not the puny biological undead. "It looks like they've undone all of our work, sir, and they're closing in from all sides." Only now was the watchman out of immediate danger.

Carjack stalked off, and took 10 minutes to allow his system to come entirely out of defrag mode and his alertness to return. Already, the watchmen were firing on the first few zombies, and the sounds made their way across the plains. This soon awakened everybody who didn't have their auditory circuits off, and the revving of engines began to compete with the noise of renewed war.

"Kill 'em all again," Carjack finally yelled out commandingly. "And this time, make sure to vaporize them so there's nothing left to re-rise! I will order supplies since it seems we're going to be stuck here for a while longer!" Soon, Carjack did just that, and back on Cybertron, military cargo-bots were hastily filled with Energon. Cargo escorts began to muster up almost immediately; any military call for cargo automatically called them as well.

It was rare that a High General needed to call for a supply line setup from the battlefield (they usually knew if there was a high chance that they'd need one before setting off from Cybertron), especially when a mission was supposed to be short, but plans were always subject to change in war and similar situations. At first, soldiers wondered if he'd encountered an unexpectedly-strong enemy, but it wasn't long before some career troops let everyone know that the Zombie Event would just about be starting up now. "With Carjack's mandate, you can bet he's now beset by about a billion fresh undead."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Immigration Office
Cybertron

Pesticide didn't know it, but he had just missed the rising of several thousand dead Earthians coming up in the place where he'd just been. He had also just missed the rising of the body of the bot he had fried, which spontaneously reactivated - soullessly - with only some of his memories still intact. Since his boards were fried, he was basically a shambler, and he looked dully upon the area before lurching off into the night. One of the few memories he had was the route back to the mine, and said mine would be in for a surprise when the new-looking, but quite dead, bot appeared and started trying to spread its zombie-ism to the still-living Decepticons by animalistically clawing at them.

Gatekeeper and Scope were glad to see Pesticide return looking a bit worse for wear but otherwise functional. "You just missed the zombie uprising!" They enthused, leaving him looking confused. "You're lucky! We just lost 10 applicants who didn't know how to deal with it!"

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

Foundries Across Cybertron

At most foundries, most whole-body scrap was melted down as soon as it came in the doors. Some had even made a point of doing this thanks to experiences from past zombie events. A few, however, had only newer employees on staff - ones who hadn't been thinking about the relatively new occurrences. There, "whole-body scrap" became more than just bodies once again.

In some cases, the now-undead bodies revved to unlife complete with their souls, which could be recalled thanks to their boards still being intact enough to contain minds. These were quite glad to be back, and even gladder to now be all but invincible. They quickly left the foundries' scrap piles with the intent to resume their lives, and if relevant to their situation, get revenge on whoever had deactivated them in the first place.

In others, however, the forms were soulless and the bodies were in states of severe battle damage. These became shamblers and runners, but when enough data remained to let them know that they had blasters and just what those were for, they were also extremely dangerous.

[Vallermoore]

Field Camp, Targeted Planet

"Normally if a bot blasted me you would be sure I'd be doing my best to blast him into his spare or worse. But Carjack is a High General, a member of the Decepticon Government, and my military superior on this mission, so he has a right to blast me if I mess up. That, and his armour is much, much stronger then mine. I got off lightly, I didn't get killed or get a military hack virus forcibly installed." As far as he knew it was not classified, so he said "I'm a Priest of Megatron who messed up , although not to the point of deliberate heresy, and needed to be sent here to toughen me up. Hopefully I will have earned the right to wear the swirling paint of a Priest once more after I have learned my much needed lesson. I certainly won't be messing up again, that is for certain. As for the rest of you, I wish you success in the Genocide Battalion, a vital part of the Decepticon military." The copper bot, who was listening in with extra good quality ears, heard nothing treasonous in Loyal Star's talk. Just then General Carjack gave them an order to defrag except for the sentries. As Loyal Star transformed into plane mode, he thought over how good it was to be Debugged, how he hoped to have proved his worth, and that in the field like this it was perfectly safe to fall asleep next to other Decepticons. If any tried to grab and hack him here, on active service, either Milintel would be onto them-or General Carjack would. He settled off to a nice defrag only to be woken by the shouts of the sentries. He transformed and prepared to blast, only to find out that the dead ponies who had not yet been rendered or turned to ash had risen again, along with decomposing pony bodies from the cemetery. Pegusai tried to bite him and had to be swatted or blasted from the sky. His skin was too hard for them to do damage.

"Someone needs to wake up General Carjack!" Neither Loyal Star nor any other bot wanted to do that. Even with a perfectly acceptable military reason for doing so, General Carjack normally blasted any bot lower in rank then a High General who dared to do that. One enterprising bot did it with a catapult and a rock and shrank to half size and so avoided the automatic fire aimed at him. It was no secret that General Carjack hated being woken up. "ZOMBIES ARISE!" Once the sentry had explained himself to a dark eyed, very annoyed General Carjack he escaped being blasted. Sentries were needed for this sort of thing after all."Kill 'em all again! And this time, make sure to vaporize them so there's nothing left to re-rise! I will order supplies since it seems we're going to be stuck here for a while longer!" With some groaning under their breath, the Genocide Battalion got back to it. Few of the unicorns used their magic as they didn't have the intelligence but it was still annoying, like if a room was tidied up only to mess itself up again and throw it's books all over the floor. Cargo bots and their escorts would be called in at Military expense so the trainees (and General Carjack) didn't starve to death doing their duty or have to mind transfer back to Cybertron.

*****
Decepticon Earth

The zombie body lurched back to the mine and was met by a fellow overseer. "Where the hell have you been, you lazy lump? Owwwwww!" The bot hit him on the jaw, then blasted him in the motion boards and tried to extract his mind boards. Other overseers came running and blasted it but couldn't defeat it and as each one dropped, it rose as a zombie. "Catch those zombies! If you can overpower them until I can get a hack virus into them, they can join our metal stock," shouted the mine owner.

Decepticon-Occupied Afterlives

The bots in charge of chipping were almost run off their foot treads. "Carjack's at it again!" Once chipped the new slaves could work eternally. If there were any Megatronists amongst Carjack's victims, they would be sent elsewhere. Enslaving loyalists for all eternity was too cruel even for Megatron.

Cybertron

Domintel was on the look out for intelligent zombies who gathered their own zombie armies like that Coltani had done last year and started any anti-Megatron uprisings. The Main Foundry was also ready to defend against any zombie attacks and opportunist thieves, and most foundries dealt with full body scrap very quickly. As dead bots were cremated, there were no zombie armies erupting from graveyards on Cybertron.

Immigration Office
Cybertron

After congratulating him for his lucky escape from the zombies, Gatekeeper said "We also admire your successful killing of a Decepticon by teleporting electricity right past his armour straight into his circuits. We've never had a biological on a survival test who managed to kill a full size Decepticon before. Enjoy flicking that tail about whilst you still can. Assuming you still want to be one of us the great but short term pain of the immigration chair awaits you for your porting. We will read your mind as you are ported to make sure you are not a spy or a traitor-if you are, we'll melt you down alive. And you need to take your loyalty oath and formally renounce any allegiance to anywhere else before we let you in that chair." He gently touched Pesticide's saw-backed boomerang cutie mark, which looked like it was a real weapon waiting to be plucked from the skin and thrown.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Targeted Planet

The other bots had mixed reactions to Loyal Star's admission of having been a priest. Some acted as though there was a fedlike in their midst and gave him suspicious, somewhat hostile looks; others just didn't care; and a few were impressed.

"I must say, Megatron is the ultimate god for us!" one of the latter said, walking over. "I came here from Earth. There, all of the big religions were preaching this love and light bullshit. One did it to the point that I was sure that it had been corrupted by some evil force that just wanted its followers to roll over and be easy to defeat. I still think that, actually. There's just no good that can come from completely accepting its definition of good - which happens to include allowing evil to have it's way and even making it easier for them to screw you next time!" He crossed his arms in a "hmph" gesture at the total lack of sense. "Then the other really big one, it couldn't really get that spin going. Oh, it preached it in a lot of places, but its followers also went around blowing stuff up and saying THAT was the real it, and plenty of their preachers agreed. The one area they found a match was in Kashmir of India/Pakistan, where they got it right back at 'em from the competing religion there - which also tried to say it was about love and light. Of course, there was also the founding religion of the two big ones. I'm not sure whether they actually think 'love and light' is any good or not. But they kept getting their asses kicked by all these different empires, and even though they managed to get out of it (until we showed up and just kicked every ass), I was never too interested in learning about it because it was clearly not the way to proper Victory. You're supposed to be IN the Genocide Battalions if there are any around. That much should just be basic sense."

"And then came Megatron!!! Who said yes - to kick every ass! To go to places like this and wipe out the inferiors so we can JACK THEIR STUFF and throw any of them that are left into the mines!! Then use their place to invade the next one! That the inferiors are there only for us to do whatever we want with them - that the universe is rightfully ours and all we have to do is make it official!" His eyes lit up, remembering the words of the Great Leader as the Invasion of Earth began. By his excitement, it was pretty certain that this guy had defected to the Decepticons then, even before that war had ended.

"It's like a complete 180, only done in 3D and in multiple universes - that's how different he is! If someone tries to preach love and light at him, he not only doesn't buy it but accuses them of trying to connive him and opens fire!!" The robot took a big bow. "He is the god for me. A WAR god. War, logic, and imperialism! Best of all, he does not give me any mental errors by demanding one thing while his followers go do the opposite and claim they're righteous. And if there's any ambiguity in the Book of Megatron that'd allow for that 'interpretation' nonsense, he'd clear it up real quick. He's much more like it." As Loyal Star looked at this new arrival, he noticed that there was a small Megatronist symbol pained on each arm under the Decepticon Seal. This guy was definitely a true believer, and by what he said, a very zealous one. Yet, he didn't want to be a priest. He wanted to be a Genocider, and show proof of Megatron's superiority by the time-honored method of using military force. Loyal Star also noticed that his stripe was accompanied by a very thin one that jagged up and down its length like lightning. He guessed that each jag actually stood for a kill. There were 1,597 jags already.

"I see you're counting my Score Stripe!" The bot announced as he followed Loyal Star's gaze, looking very proud. It was not an official stripe, but he had named it anyway. He stood up tall. "War of Equestria, Battle of Canterlot. It was there that I realized I had to get myself into the Genocide Battalion so I could do that sort of thing all the time." He spoke softer now, not wanting everyone else to hear, "I'm not like these guys who go around Cybertron wiping out other Decepticons. I'm not looking for any challenges. I like it when the targets are NO challenge at all - when they're looking up at me fully aware that they're nothing but specks - and knowing that it's aallll over." He chuckled with an excited menace. If there was one thing this guy was NOT, it was emotionless. His drives and emotions created a chilling eagerness that thrilled him, but terrified anyone who could be considered a target.

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

Soon enough, everyone went beck to work to re-delete those who had risen as zombies. Most were either vaporized or nearly so, so that they would not be able to undo the group's work by rising yet again. A few thousand of the zombie-ponies who were in decent shape, however, were ordered captured. They were put into empty Energon cubes and loaded into cargo-bots. "These will all go to Mine #1," Carjack announced, giving a cargo-bot a couple of solid pats as the hold door closed. The sound upon contact was solid and well-built. "Overseer can never get enough zoms. He'll be ecstatic to get some that were ponies, too. Their different design spec will be better-suited to some of the mining jobs than the humans are." With a roar, the three cargo-bots assigned to this task blasted down the temporary runway that had been created and then took off into space. They had been unable to use robot mode here since the ground was too soft. Meanwhile, the backup cargo arrived and everyone had some more Energon. It would be enough to complete the mission.

Before long, the zombies were re-dead, and this time, there wasn't enough left of them for them to rise again. The job went very quickly this time - almost literally like mowing a huge lawn - thanks to the lack of functioning cognition in those affected. They did not try to dodge, use weapons, or even flee, but instead, had kept coming as if they were swarms of insects going to bug lights. Many Decepticons finally just sat down, propped their arms on their knees, and boredly let off sweeping blasts until there was nothing left to shoot at. "I think they detect sapience and just come to it," some figured.

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

Cybertron
Main Military Base

The group of would-be Genociders arrived early the next day, and Carjack ordered that everyone get cleaned up. Meanwhile, he would go through the performance reports and determine who was in. At noon the day after, there would be a ceremony to welcome the new Genociders to the actual Battalion, and during it, those who made it would get their official Skulls-and-Wrenches enameled on.

~~~~~~~~~

The ceremony itself was very stately, and full of pomp and circumstance. Each new inductee marched up onto a stage where his wings were each painted with the Skull-and-Wrenches, which for now was done in ceremonial gold paint unless the bot himself was already gold (if he was, the symbol was done in black for good contrast). General Carjack had treated his blasters so that their etchings stood out, most likely by applying some sort of black coating and then rubbing it back off, leaving it only in the etched parts. Everyone had several extra coats of the finest wax on for the occasion, and they gleamed even better than showroom-new.

The level of respect in its atmosphere was extreme - more like what would be expected for ascension to a cabinet position or better, than as soldiers in a large group dedicated to wanton massacre. This, of course, was because of how General Carjack arranged his induction ceremonies - each general did the event planning for things under his purview, rather than it coming from Megatron himself. Carjack's high sense of ego had its fingerprints on everything from the tiny golden cans of enamel to the lighting, and there was no doubt that HE, at least, thought this was the finest Battalion in the entire Decepticon Military.

Carjack's opinion wasn't as far off as an outsider might think. His Battalion was the deadliest, and therefore, generally seen as the strongest "special forces" group - and on Cybertron, strength and deadliness were both kings. Not only that, anyone who dared to challenge this notion was likely to end up dead, whether by official means or not, making it so that an aura of fear was created and maintained by each member of the group. No other soldier group automatically gained the "practical respect" that would be obtained just by showing that one symbol - the symbol of a Genocider.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In the back, Loyal Star watched with more interest than he'd expected to have. Since he would not actually be joining the Genociders, but instead going back to the Main Temple the next day to get High Priest Warfire's next orders, he would not be part of this ceremony - only an observer. While he knew that he really was not Genocider material, he couldn't help but feel a little wistful as he saw the others get the type of induction no priest would ever have. He would likely miss some members of the team and their eagerness, despite the gristly work they would be doing as full members of their group.

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

Immigration Office

Pesticide's jaw went agape when Gatekeeper mentioned his killing of the mine-bot. Apparently it was true after all - DomIntel knew all! He hadn't even seen anything suspicious, yet the news had made it back.

"Oh, yes." Gatekeeper confirmed. "DomIntel observed your every action." He pulled up a holovision image of the scene in which Pesticide had overloaded his adversary. It was taken from the perspective of someone - or something - high in a tree over that bot's left shoulder. Some brightness enhancement was present, perhaps from the viewer's own optics, that had used the light of the moon as the illumination source. "Didn't you see that owl?" Gatekeeper grinned, knowing full well that the agent would have gone as a dark brown owl with medium-tan bars and been totally invisible to a non-predatory biological species while sitting up there in the dark.

After a little more small talk, Pesticide took the Oath of Loyalty, renounced all other loyalties, and was ready. Soon enough, they had done the quick (but painful) operation of exposing his brain so that the probes could be installed, and the (also-painful) process of his data transfer began. Almost immediately, his sense of physical position and then his senses in general were lost as his data was removed, ported to the new OS, and installed into the board set's CPUs. As long as nothing disqualifying was found, he would regain his senses in a set of new mind-boards and then be tested for basic sanity and operations before being installed into his first proper Decepticon body. During the process, he would also get any patches and modules he needed to operate it and to consciously understand Binary.

[Vallermoore]

Targeted Planet

Some bots gave Loyal Star somewhat hostile looks and moved away, as if he was a Domintel bot or worse, some sort of nark. These were the bots who thought he was going to get all preachy at them, when in fact he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Most didn't care one way or the other. Then there were those bots who were impressed. The most impressed of these bots came over and de facto revealed himself to be a former human from earth. Loyal Star listened politely to him and said "You must mean" here he wrinkled his nose in disgust "ugh...Christianity. Megatronism, unlike the peacenik religions, is very clear in what it wants, and always will be." He decided that now was not the time to mention his former pony origins. "It must have been an amazing battle when you and the others overwhelmed Canterlot and brought the proud ponies down to death or the slave market. Your way of serving our God is every bit as useful as mine is. May you live long and prosper and never have to wake up General Carjack." After dealing with the zombies they flew back to Cybertron, who by now had dealt with it's unintelligent zombies with military units where necessary. Loyal Star knew he didn't want to be a Genocider permanently but all the same, a part of him wanted to be up there getting his Skull and Wrenches. He would miss one or two of the group although he would be happy to be away from General Carjack. Afterwards he flew to the Main Temple hoping he had finally redeemed himself enough to wear Priestly paint again. Soon enough he was allowed to meet High Priest Warfire, who looked at him with much less anger then before. After he submitted to a Face examination it smiled, showing Loyal Star through punishment and serving with the Genociders (as well as a much needed Debugging) had purged his Ponyism.

First Temple, Cybertron

Warfire was still a little testy, but his eyes were of moderate brightness and his engine ran reasonably well. "It seems that you have redeemed yourself and cleaned out the traces of unwanted Ponyism in your soul. Make sure that you stay that way. I know you may have earned a double Gold Stripe, but that is not an eternal get out of the furnace free card. You are now restored to the rank of ordinary Priest, and someday if you avoid errors or freak accidents, you will one day become a planetary priest once more, or even a priest in charge of many planets. However well you do, you will of course never become High Priest, since that position is mine. "
There was just the slightest bit of warning tone in that last word, as if he suspected Loyal Star of wanting to take his position and wanted to nip it in the bud. "Soon I will have a new mission for you, for now, you make have yourself painted in our Priestly Colours. Welcome back to the Temple, Priest Loyal Star."

Immigration Office

The killing of the mine-bot was seen as a major plus. If he could be that deadly as a pony, how would he be as a full bot. As his mind was transferred, they found nothing to show he was a would be traitor or some kind of spy. They did find average pony thoughts, but that was to be expected. They were sure to make sure that unlike with Loyal Star until he was debugged, his new species identification said Decepticon instead of Decepticon Pony. He would still remember being a pony of course, but would self-identify as a Decepticon. They coded in such things as walking on two legs unless in a four legged body, and edited out the tail waving reflex as both unneeded and frankly silly. Of course, they made sure he could understand Binary, the normal language of the Decepticon Nation , to biologicals a series of noughts and ones that very few could understand. This was vital not only to be understood but to stay alive and keep the equvilent of a heartbeat going.

[Victorious Decepticons]

"Christianity isn't the only one I was talking about," clarified the formerly-human bot before they left the targeted planet. "Islam's the one that essentially had two opposite official messages going on at once. Some of their preachers were all for peace, but others started whole movements dedicated to blowing up anyone who didn't agree with them - including other Muslims! And I was also talking about Judaism, which had the unique distinction of ending up in the way of many Battalions like ours, yet somehow always managing to avoid destruction. They also had a weird effect where every empire that tried to delete them would get a great score, but then in the end, get destroyed by something. In your Genocider Manual, it will note that our Battalion did not do attacks against Israel for this reason. The Main Military was left to subdue it on its own - which of course, it did, since Megatron was not going to be dissuaded by 'myths and legends.' Anyway, I never cared for Judaism because of the high chance of ending up as a statistic, regardless of their survival as a group I want to MAKE that kind of statistics, not be one."

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

First Temple, Cybertron

Loyal Star was ecstatic to be told that he could wear the Priestly Colors once more, and to be addressed as Priest Loyal Star. This time, however, there would be no ceremony - only one big show per rank-gain was allowed. The painting took place in the basement as before, but then the swirling action was brought to life in a small blessing ritual in one of the back rooms on the ground floor. This room wasn't a storage closet or anything, but it was basic and only had room for Loyal Star, High Priest Warfire, and one observer. Even so, the paint did indeed swirl with Megatron's blessing, granting Loyal Star a clear sign of membership in a group that was just as exclusive as the Genociders...but not as deadly.

To Warfire's surprise, he didn't get a chance to assign Loyal Star to his new position. Instead, a messenger came from the Megatron Mansion with direct orders. Rather than start right back with missionary work, he was to go to the planet they had just wiped out and set up a small Temple there. There, he would minister to the Decepticon Military regulars who would be stationed there in the new base that was already being built. He would also see to the spiritual needs of the raiders who would surely make their way to the new easy-pickings zone, perhaps visiting their unofficial camps to keep them motivated and mindful of their Divine Leader.

"This sounds like a cush job, but the point is surely to keep you under close surveillance for now - and to make sure you're properly immersed in Decepticon culture before you go out to weird and foreign lands again," Warfire said. "My only warning is that the planet that's going to be targeted has one, yes one, small spaceworthy warcraft. Their leadership will probably send it to attack out of frustration. Make sure you're not the unlucky slob who underestimates the thing."

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

Immigration Office Area

Pesticide practically danced out of the office in glee, his new engine revving with both pleasure and excitement. So this was Cybertron, seen as it was meant to be! He looked wide-eyed at all of the other robots, as well as all of the buildings that had seemed so absolutely towering when he'd arrived, but that seemed like normal city structures now that he was in his big Decepticon body. Skyscrapers that did still seem big were a short distance away, and he could now read the Binary names across their tops and see that most belonged to various companies.

Suddenly, the sights and sounds were broken with a colossal explosion. He jerked his head in its direction, and saw that one skyscraper, marked "Adamantium Investments," was now on fire and on its way down. Bots flew from its windows blasting their afterburners, and Pesticide could swear that he could faintly hear distant grumbling, rather than screaming, coming from these impromptu evacuees. He then noticed that those around him were barely giving the scene a glance, if that. Most acted as though it was an everyday occurrence.

"You just come from Immigration?" Someone said, strolling up. "I can tell. You're bothering to look at that." He pointed at the now-blank spot in the skyline, where smoke and flames were still pouring up from the ground. "Everyone knew Adamantium was a crook. They got cocky and stopped trying to even hide that they had ripped everybody off who dealt with them. It was just a matter of time before someone on the wrong end saved up the money for a good enough bomb to properly show his ire. If he did it right, he welded the CEO's office shut, too. I'll give you a tip, kid: If it says 'Investments' on it, don't invest. At least not here. Show your patriotism on the battlefield, not in the financial district." He looked back at the burning Adamantium Investments crater and leaned back with a satisfied expression. "Serves 'em right. Too bad so many were able to fly away." No one who overheard this last statement looked at all appalled at the sentiment. In fact, a few nodded a bit as they continued on their way.

Pesticide had always heard that the Decepticons were of his style, and he'd been convinced enough to immigrate, but only now - upon hearing 'too bad so many were able to fly away' - could he truly rest assured that a full-on retributive massacre was not something the average Meltdown would shy away from.

[Vallermoore]

Immigration Office Area

Pesticide was very pleased with his new body, but aware that in the time whilst he waited for his first conscription stint, he would need to get Energon. He also didn't have enough Energon for a new body yet, so he didn't want to get himself killed in a stupid fight. If despite trying to avoid it he did end up in a fight, he decided he'd try and make a hole-no matter how small-in his opponent's Faraday cage-and his pony magic could do the rest and fry his foe's insides. If he successfully became a Genocider, he would be given military rations as compensation for not being allowed to go out and raid. Unlike almost any other bot, the Genocide Battalion members were quite restricted in their raids because otherwise their activities could result in an unwanted war at the wrong time. They did get leave, obviously, but their freedom to just fly anywhere was restricted and so they needed to be fed because of the restrictions on them getting their own Energon. The city was not quite as large from the point of view as a Decepticon as it was for a pony. What had been towering buildings were now normal size. When a building was blown up, another bot was soon aware he was an immigrant. He asked the bot "Do you think any raid gangs at a Quick Drink would take on a temporary member? I need to get myself some Energon to last until my first conscription stint, after which I'm hoping to be allowed to join the Genocide Battalion. Until then, a bot needs to drink to live, a lone raid might be risky, and I didn't join the Deception Nation just to work if I can possibly avoid it."

*****
"Some groups of Islam are almost Megatronist. At least it's not a wussy religion. And it was wise of Carjack to leave the wider Military to do the job, rather then have some curse come down upon the Battalion. As a Genocider, you'll be able to do all the killing you could ever want," Loyal Star replied. The copper bot carried on listening in but couldn't detect a word of treason being spoken."

*****
First Temple, Cybertron

The one observer happened to be none other then Fire Eater and once Loyal Star had his Priestly Paint back, both bots gave each other a bow that was the equivalent of a hearty handshake or even a small hug. Physical contact when not fighting was normally avoided between Decepticons because of the danger of accidental damage, with the exception of the gesture of pressing palms together.....and that was very intimate indeed and generally done between Coder and offspring at some very emotional time in their lives. For everything else, there were various sizes of bows that indicated different things. "It's great to see you again, Loyal Star. I would have hated to lose you. In some ways you are almost like an offspring." Just then a messenger from Megatron delivered a message that for now Loyal Star was to be in effect a base chaplain. "This sounds like a cush job, but the point is surely to keep you under close surveillance for now - and to make sure you're properly immersed in Decepticon culture before you go out to weird and foreign lands again,"Warfire said. "My only warning is that the planet that's going to be targeted has one, yes one, small spaceworthy warcraft. Their leadership will probably send it to attack out of frustration. Make sure you're not the unlucky slob who underestimates the thing."

"I need to reimmerse myself in our culture," Loyal Star said. "My recent Debugging helped, but I need to get used to being who I am before going abroad to strange lands beyond the Empire's temporary borders." After thanking Warfire for taking him back, he flew off and reported to the military base where he would stay for now as a temporary base chaplain, setting up a small Temple there on the perimeter with the approval of the base commander.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Immigration Office Area

The friendly native's demeanor changed quickly when Pesticide said he wanted to be a Genocider. Instantly, he took a step backward, and subtly got more ready to defend himself.

"A Genocider..." he repeated. "Well, you will gain the respect of the people when it comes to your deadliness, but you won't get much interaction that way. It is a very dark stretch of sky you must fly through, to want to do that. Not that there isn't room here for the murderous. After all, they let you in." He kept his words measured, now a bit concerned that he might become part of the other bot's score.

"Every Quick Drink is different," he said, addressing Pesticide's question. "If you just want to be a temporary hand, then you can usually pick up a slot over at First and Steel. But that's not the best place for you. You want to be a Genocider, then you won't mind flying with some of the roughest, or doing some work that others find a bit heavy for a gig. I suggest you go to Crack & Addams if you have a score to back up that ambition. Make your way to the back. You'll see a fancy, boss-type sitting at a table with some associates. That's Connect. Head of the Interplanetary Commerce Commission. Oh, you don't get your jobs from him. You don't even get to talk to him. But his bodyguards will demand to know what you're there for. Tell whichever one is talkin' that you've got a score and a couple of months, and what you want to be. Then hang around the area for a few days, living rough. It's dangerous, but if you're all that, you'll handle it and get a bigger score - and a bit of reputation - in the process. And then the ICC will direct you to one of their stores and give you a passcode. Go there, give the code, and they'll give you some pick-up work as a problem solver. I'm sure you can imagine how you'll be solving the problems."

Pesticide nodded, his new system easily memorizing all of the information.

"At some point," the other bot went on, "you're going to hear that the IOPC is still in operation." He gave a quick synopsis of the IOPC and its recent history. "But don't bother going there. You're too unknown. Worse, it has lost a lot of business because of the threat of DomIntel investigation. Now, most who go there are either already associated with it or otherwise on the radar, and they only want to hire proven elites. The ICC has the walk-in trade, for the most part, so that's where to go if you want to pick up some quick Cubes. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some business to take care of..."

The bot walked off and soon disappeared into the crowd. Pesticide got the impression that he didn't really have business to attend to at all, but instead, was nervous to hang around even a would-be Genocider.

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

Staging Area #12


This was the only name given to the planet that had just been cleared of life and then unlife. Its original name was known only to the few in the records offices and to those who had authorized Carjack's attack, and even to them, it was irrelevant. Now, it was just a place to build a base and a refinery, and a location from which finished Energon could be sent back to Cybertron. A generic number was all it needed.

As Loyal Star flew in its direction, he saw that several thousand troops were headed the same way. Many cargo-bots were with them, presumably carrying building materials and other supplies for the next phase of the operation. A few strange-looking bots were also dotted throughout the group; these were ones who could transform into massive artillery batteries if required. Since the Military expected little to no opposition, though, they didn't want non-transforming artillery since all that does in peaceful situations is sit there and take up space. Transformers, on the other hand, took a bit longer to get into position but would be very useful to the operation as robots when there was nothing to shoot at.

Upon arrival, he found that the Temple had not yet been built. Instead, everyone was focused on building the most essential military structures and getting the supplies inside. He noticed that off in the distance, there was now a huge fire going. Activating his zoom optics revealed that it was a gruesome pile of re-killed zombie pony parts. The Genociders had left the bits and pieces where they lay, and now, cleanup fell to the new conscripts and a few more-experienced troops who were on punishment detail. A steady stream of troops came to the pyre carrying various biological bits and looking disgruntled about the menial task. Fortunately, just like most humans don't freak out about picking up pieces of machinery, robots have no natural high aversion to handling chunks of dead flesh. It was just a boring and blah sort of job to most of them.

As he stood there wondering just what to do next, a Trainer came up authoritatively. "Hey, you, don't just stand around lookin' lost. Report to the Base Commander!" He pointed at one of the buildings that was already up. It was a pole-type building with corrugated metal sides, as were the other structures. Just now, someone on a ladder was painting "Command Center" on it in Binary. A Decepticon Seal had been added to one side of the words, and it was clear that another one would go on the other side when the painting was finished.

[Vallermoore]

Staging Area #12

When Loyal Star flew in a large number of bored bots, a few with punishment bands on, were feeding bits of pony body into a fire. The horns let off minor magical explosions as they cooked, too small to do any damage to the huge war machines. He landed and a Trainer came up to him. "Hey, you, don't just stand around lookin' lost. Report to the Base Commander!" "Yes Sir ", Loyal Star said and saluted, hoping the Base Commander would not be High General Carjack. He was lucky-General Carjack had left long ago and a Base General had taken over the base. Loyal Star knocked and was admitted and gave a mid-range bow. "I am Priest Loyal Star, sent here by High Priest Warfire as the base chaplain. Although I don't mind helping build the base if that is what you want me to do Sir." Seeing their Priest carrying out hard work with them like an ordinary soldier would raise the opinion of him in the eyes of the solders and make him useful in general. He didn't want the other bots thinking he was hoity-totiy and saw himself as better then them after all. If they liked him, his sermons would have a greater effect on them.

Immigration Office Area

As soon as the other bot heard Pesticide announce his planned occupation, he stepped back a few steps. Genociders were known to take on other bots not for what was considered a good reason by most bots such as vengeance or robbery but just to kill them for the fun of it. In the early days of the Priesthood, one or two Genociders had thought the Megatronist Priests would be weak, wussy and unable to fight properly. After a body or two was incinerated by holy fusion fire, that had stopped, but few bots trusted Genociders or wanted much to do with them. Decepticons made few friends anyway, but they were even less likely to befriend Genociders. "A Genocider...Well, you will gain the respect of the people when it comes to your deadliness, but you won't get much interaction that way. It is a very dark stretch of sky you must fly through, to want to do that. Not that there isn't room here for the murderous. After all, they let you in."

After taking in the information Pesticide thanked the bot and decided to take his advice. He flew off to Crack and Addams, known as a place where those bots that even Decepticons considered to be gangster types hung out and walked inside. As he got near the back, he saw a bot that was clearly Connect at a table with other bots, but before he could get close, bodyguard bots of the ICC moved in menacingly, rubbing their blasters, clearly ready to open fire within a second or two. "Come no further. What do you want here?"

"My name is Pesticide, and I am intending to join the Genocide Battalion after my first conscription stint. But that isn't for a while. I don't want to starve to death waiting, raiding as a single bot is very dangerous, and I certainly didn't become a Decepticon to work at an average job. Since the ICC is the biggest and best syndicate in the Empire, I thought you might have some scores to offer me-some problems that I can solve for you." When they heard the term Genocide Battalion, the ICC bots became just slightly less unfriendly. Perhaps a bot like this could indeed be of some use to the ICC? A Genocider if he was planning to be one, would certainly be tougher then the average Decepticon. Their dark eyes brightened, but only a little bit.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Staging Area #12

The work of building went quickly, though Loyal Star was somewhat unthrilled when a trainer assigned him to help build roads. Unlike the buildings, which just had to withstand some light winds except for a few heavily-fortified ones, the roads had to handle being trod on by Decepticons all day and night. They were being made of true Cybertronian Structural Steel, the same stuff as the Metal Planet itself, and it took several troops to move each one into position. Not only that, since they were on an organic world, vapor barrier had to be installed in each spot before the panel went down. Thankfully for Loyal Star, he was a robot like the rest - a biological built like a human would surely have gotten a sore back from all of the grading, bending, lifting, walking with the heavy weight of the panels, and the rest of the work! A pony like himself would have been more prone to laminitis thanks to having to drag the panels instead of lift them, which would be an even worse fate.

The Decepticons, however, had no serious physical problems with this job. They would likely need some of their hydraulic lines replaced a bit sooner than usual due to the extra wear - general soldier bodies weren't meant for this sort of sustained work, and the construction division ones who were, were on Cybertron - but the Military had loads of spares of all parts right at the base, so it'd just be an inconvenience when the time finally came. Most likely, the wear would not become obvious for a year or so, only showing up when mechanical checks detected it. The Military would not wait until failure to replace any worn lines, gears, or anything else, though.

After the roads were put in, much of the rest of the work was easy. Pole buildings were erected to hold general items, and thicker, armored ones were built as barracks. Arms depots and Energon storage areas, however, were made of extra-thick blast-proof materials. Luckily for Loyal Star, he wasn't drafted to help build these. Instead, he had something more to his interest to build now: The chapel that would serve this collection of soldiers. This, however, would be armed and armored in the manner of the large Temples of Megatron - after all, they would be actively provoking the planet next door, so it had to be able to handle a good amount of retaliation just in case MilIntel had underestimated the chance of that happening.

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

Crack and Addams, Cybertron

It turned out that this was actually the name of the streets the restaurant was on, though everyone referred to the business by that title as if they were one and the same. The business itself did not advertise a name, and if it wasn't for the constant foot traffic going in and out, one would not be sure that it was even of interest. It had no windows, though apparently, it once did. The window openings had long since been filled with blast- and bomb-proof steel and then covered over with a fancier veneer.

Inside, Pesticide found himself immersed in cigar smoke and could hear plenty of rough voices as the gangsters talked, yet at the same time, upscale waiters delivered Supreme to the tables in gold-rimmed glasses that were coated in tiny diamonds. He passed a well-painted band as he made his way through the smoke cover to the back.

After stating his business, he was - as the other bot had warned - told to stay in the area. "We'll observe you and see if you really know how to handle yourself," the bodyguard gruffly informed him. "If you're any good, we'll come and give you further instructions."

Pesticide might not have realized it yet, but he would indeed have to 'sleep rough' - in other words, on the streets - because there were no hotels in this area and no rooms for rent in the fortified houses. It was the ICC's home turf, so everyone here just went home when they wanted to rest, and no tourists wanted to stay in such a heavily gangland type of place. Still, if Pesticide knew Cybertron's areas, he would see it as being a couple of grades above the IOPC's old stomping grounds, with buildings that were, at least, all maintained; fewer seedy people just hanging around looking to attack random travelers; and streets that had been cleaned - though the cleaning looked to have been done a couple of years prior. The boss, who now nodded with just enough approval to show that he agreed with the bodyguard, was certainly classier than the dirty orange one that had been talked about back on what was now Glorious Equidae.

Staying in this area, he realized, was a mini-survival test above and beyond the one Immigration had put him through. They clearly expected him to have to fight. If he won his fights, and wasn't killed in his sleep either, then a position would open up...

[Vallermoore]

Staging Area #12

Loyal Star didn't protest and did as much work as any other bot, consoling himself with the thought that the other bots would now start thinking of him as one of them and not some pompous cleric with his head up his exhaust pipe. Afterwards he was able to build and arm with a few of the heavy guns a nice new Temple to Megatron. When it was almost finished, he flew back to Cybertron, brought with his own Energon an altar and Face from the right place, and brought them to the new Temple, before speaking the few words that consecrated it. As he did so, for a second the eyes in the Face glowed before going back to normal. He then had a Cube of plain but not unpleasant (for robots that is) military Energon rations. As a base chaplain, he was entitled to a soldier's rations. Amongst other Decepticons, he was getting used to their special (to the point where Domintel protected it) culture. For now at least, the other bots didn't speak to him, although he hoped over time that might change as they got to know him. He didn't butt in, as he didn't want to anger other bots and maybe stir up trouble for later. The other bots chatted to each other in the normal way of off duty soldiers, except for three wearing punishment bands for minor to middling military offenses.

Crack and Addams, Cybertron

Cigar smoke, luckily for Pesticide, had no ill effects on his body. Metal didn't get cancer. We'll observe you and see if you really know how to handle yourself," the bodyguard gruffly informed him. "If you're any good, we'll come and give you further instructions." Connect had heard what had been said, and gave the smallest of nods to show this wasn't an unpleasant prank from the bodyguard. Pesticide thanked the bodyguard, gave a deep bow, and left the building, but not the area. He realized this was a test in itself. He would have to stay and sooner or later sleep in the open, and soon enough he would be fighting. If he lived and stayed free, the ICC would get to hear about it, and sooner or later a contract would come in. If he carried it out with success, other contracts would come in and when he was called up the Military, and hopefully in time the Genociders, would give him rations. Amongst the Genociders he would be amongst bots like himself. He was thinking that way when it started getting dark, and two highly armoured bots...Scroungers....happened to come along and took a good look at him. If they did attack him, he decided he would try and make even the tiniest holes in their Faraday cages-and then his pony magic could do the rest and he could take the bodies to the local foundry, minus any Energon. But he wasn't going to start the trouble especially as he had no spares yet.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Staging Area #12

Though the work was hard, it didn't take long before even the worst of it was finished. Constructicons, of a sort, did the seriously heavy labor like digging trenches for waste-oil pipes and tanks, bulldozing foundation spaces flat, and preparing the massive reinforced runway that would be used by the cargo-bots. Loyal Star watched in awe as a massive flat-bottomed, flat-sided hole was dug, huge pilings the size of buildings were installed in that, which went down over 100 feet and rose up all the way to the outer surface, and then special steel-belted concrete was laid in the hole until it, too, reached the surface. No cargo-bot would have to worry about this runway cracking under him.

Loyal Star didn't have to do any work on this runway. He just watched the massiveness of what it took to properly prepare a place for ongoing cargo-bot traffic. When it was done, there was even what seemed to be a very large lounge area off to one end. In reality, though, it would only hold about 3 cargo-bots in robot mode, and it would be cramped for them.

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

Soon, the base Temple was complete, and though it was relatively small, it bore all of the characteristic insignia and a fancy outside. No one would have to wonder where the place of worship was - not when Leader Megatron was the object of said worship! Loyal Star stood outside admiring the result, when to his surprise, a messenger arrived from the First Temple with a letter. He didn't stay long, instead refueling from his own stock and heading right back to Cybertron. Apparently, this messenger wasn't too fond of Military activity and only took part when he had to.

Loyal Star opened the communique, only to find that his decision to buy Temple equipment with his own money wasn't such a grand idea after all.

"Loyal Star, while we appreciate your apparent desire to financially support Temple operations, buying equipment from private sources is not the way to do it," it began. "The official Temple organization is the ONLY source of proper and official equipment guaranteed to be of the highest grade. Also, it goes without saying that Budgeting takes care of all of the financials. When you are ordered to build a Temple, the funds for the approved architecture are allocated and all you need to do is go over to Temple Supply and say you're ready to start. All of the materials and transportation are then provided."

"At 10 PM, a small transport will arrive with Approved versions of a Face of Megatron, two Statues - one for each side of the doors, outside - an altar, and a Temple Curtain. These are to be exchanged for the outside materials you had used. Strict quality and sourcing controls according to your Priestly Manual are to be followed from here on out. That is all."

It was stamped at the end by Temple of Megatron Materials and Logistics, with no individual name present.

The first service was to be the next afternoon, so Loyal Star would have to work fast to get all of the official items in position and the other ones onto the transport for return to Cybertron. However, it was unlikely that this would present any serious problems.

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

Crack Street, Cybertron

Pesticide observed the Scroungers with as much menace as they observed him, quickly discerning where their built-up armor wasn't as strong as they thought it was, where it could be melted and seized, and how he could take them down. He knew of their tactics and thought it would be ironically funny if, instead of breaking through their Faraday cages, he managed to seize their joints and take them to the foundry instead of the other way around.

Meanwhile, the Scroungers saw a body that looked clearly new, but also clearly baseline. They could take it, they both figured. However, it would be able to put up a decent fight and therefore would take far more effort than would be needed for someone in worse condition. Without a word, they kept walking, going toward a warehouse district that was known to have some vagrants present on occasion.

Off in the distance, a DomIntel-looking bot watched the scene, pretending to be engrossed in a brightly-painted news chip that was sticking out of his port. His body seemed fairly new, with a couple of dents that might have been intentionally placed, and he occasionally revved with a slightly hostile tone...perhaps at the news he seemed to be reading, but perhaps at something else, instead.

After several minutes, this bot stopped leaning on the wall and began to purposely march towards Pesticide. It didn't take long to see that he surely wasn't a DomIntel agent. In fact, he was probably a mugger. To Pesticide, however, he looked like something completely different: his upcoming first kill as a full Decepticon citizen.

Pesticide was already standing at full height with his blasters ready as this guy came into can't-miss range, and the would-be Genocider had already identified that the dents had been done wrongly and were now weak spots that he could blast through. Though he wouldn't forget that he had magical abilities, he was actually good at many kinds of fighting - and now that he had a body of decently-even strength as his foes, he could go at them in several ways. He would exploit any weakness that he detected, from the dents to the opponent's basic construction plan, to secure his victory. (Mentally, he made a decision to go buy manuals for every standard Decepticon body type once he had the chance to leave the area. Knowing how they were actually engineered would make him much more deadly, at least against the many who bought off-the-shelf Decepticon Parts models and then only changed them a bit.)

At this point, Pesticide stepped forth. "So you want to be the first mark on this body's blasters," he surmised menacingly. His engine automatically took on a low and predatory growl, and he spared about 2 kbs of processing power to appreciate how well it matched his mood.

"And here I thought you'd be smart enough to hand over your Energon and your field repair kit." The mugger responded thuggishly. "Guess not. Guess I get to collect some whole-body scrap instead."

With that, the battle began.

[Vallermoore]

Staging Area #12

Loyal Star felt very pleased with himself when the Temple was finished. It was the kind of Temple a Megatronist could feel proud of. He was a little less pleased with the message that he got next. "Loyal Star, while we appreciate your apparent desire to financially support Temple operations, buying equipment from private sources is not the way to do it. The official Temple organization is the ONLY source of proper and official equipment guaranteed to be of the highest grade. Also, it goes without saying that Budgeting takes care of all of the financials. When you are ordered to build a Temple, the funds for the approved architecture are allocated and all you need to do is go over to Temple Supply and say you're ready to start. All of the materials and transportation are then provided. At 10 PM, a small transport will arrive with Approved versions of a Face of Megatron, two Statues - one for each side of the doors, outside - an altar, and a Temple Curtain. These are to be exchanged for the outside materials you had used. Strict quality and sourcing controls according to your Priestly Manual are to be followed from here on out. That is all." He noted it down in a file to pop up automatically whenever a new Temple needed to be built and read his Priestly Manual file cover to file. Soon enough the transport arrived-a live and free one-and Loyal star thanked the bot and soon the things he had brought were on the shuttle and the other things were all set up in the Temple. He consecrated it and for a second, the eyes of the Face glowed on their own. All was well. His earlier heresy purged, Loyal Star was now a fully accepted Priest, and his mind went back to when he was a pony getting his first lessons in Megatronism from Fire Eater. It was a strange feeling, knowing once he had been a beta pony. It would be like a human remembering that he used to be a mouse.

Crack Street, Cybertron

Tough as they were, the Scroungers decided that it wasn't worth taking damage for one bit of scrap and looked for easier prey. Not long afterwards, a lone bot who intended to be a mugger approached Pesticide, and Pesticide said, his engine growling "So you want to be the first mark on this body's blasters." The mugger replied
"And here I thought you'd be smart enough to hand over your Energon and your field repair kit. Guess not. Guess I get to collect some whole-body scrap instead."
A second latter they were fighting, both having prepared for battle as they spoke. Pesticide still wanted to fry the bot's circuits with pony magic if possible as it would shorten the battle, but he was thinking through all the angles. Perhaps he could destroy the bot's limbs and then turn on his jammer and take the bot down the road to a foundry that was open, or blast him in a more conventional fashion, or even teleport up close and blast the bot's head at point blank range. He was no longer that weak little unicorn pony facing a foe the size of a building anymore, he was upgraded and so much better in every way. He could take on bots on equal terms unless they were stronger and more upgraded then him, or were temporarily (and in a very few cases like High Generals permanently) protected by the treason law. Debuggers preforming their duties and bots who were being debugged, for example, were temporarily protected by the treason law to stop the vital for sanity Debugging being disrupted, for example.

He was taking some damage, but he could tell the other bot was taking damage as well.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Base Temple

In the civilian world, Temple services were always held on Wednesday afternoons. Here, though, Loyal Star was informed by Base Command that he would need to run three small services on Wednesday and another two on Thursday. This way, every soldier would be able to get a service without pulling anyone off of active duty.

"There will be a roll-taking soldier at the entrance," the commander ordered. "He will ensure that the attendance order is being obeyed. Here, coming into Temple is not a matter of appearances or anything like that. It's a direct order from Megatron himself, and as soldiers, everyone here has to obey it. However, it is unstrategic to have more than 1/5 of the troops diverted at any one time, so I've ordered the 5 services. Don't worry - they don't all have to be different. In fact, they are to be the same, so everyone gets the same message each week."

"You may notice some troops coming in for more than one service per week. This is bad as well. Those aren't devout types, they're slackers looking to hide from their duties. Don't be dismayed if some of those types are dragged out of here in the middle of a service. Just pause and continue on once the minor commotion ceases."

To his surprise, the Commander gave him an order: This week, he was to speak about how this mission - raiding the planet next door - was divinely ordained and would strengthen the Nation with a steady supply of new oil. Loyal Star was also to include something about how the 'oil bees' that were to be raided had no other purpose than to provide more oil, and that they were not to be taken as pets or friends. While the Commander said no more at this point, Loyal Star would wonder if he would always be ordered to give sermons that supported the Military's immediate agenda or if there would only be a few times that it'd happen.

Base Commander's Office

On the Commander's desk, a chip sat out next to a foil-paper. The paper explained that this chip held the data for the next 100 planned sermons, and was signed by High Command. Everything was indeed closely coordinated, not by the Commander himself, but by his superiors. Both the troops and Loyal Star would thereby learn exactly what messages, tones, and practices were truly of Megatronism.

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

Crack Street, Cybertron

Pesticide quickly remembered the dents that his opponent had, and began to concentrate his fire on those spots. The would-be mugger didn't think too much about it - there was no key functionality in those places, so what did it matter if his opponent managed to scorch his way through? If they were important, he would have fixed them already, he thought...

Meanwhile, Pesticide kept pounding away, knowing that all it would take is a breach in the Faraday cage to allow him to fry this guy in his entirety. Decepticons of fighting builds usually put in some compartmentalization, however, so it might take making a couple of breaches to allow him full access to all of the electronics. Therefore, he made sure to blast at both dented areas to increase his chances of later electrifying something critical.

Of course, the mugger didn't just stand there taking fire - he was delivering his own with great gusto as well. The sounds of blasts and clangs echoed through the area, and before long, vulture-like lowlifes began to subtly arrive in the inlets leading to commercial doorways. They didn't intend to join the fight and make it a brawl. Instead, they planned to let the two fight it out, and THEN attack to at least steal the body of the loser for meltdown. If the winner ended up being too beat-up to take on another challenger, that'd be even more loot for them, either in the form of whatever stuff the winner had or in his body itself.

The gangsters here already had their own pecking order long worked out, so they knew who would go first. The strongest currently present was a dark blue bot who transformed into, surprisingly enough, a massive counterfeit-coin-making machine. This one's alt-mode could also do things like skim off sheets of cash that were printed with legitimate dies that were installed into him, and he often got himself set up at official mints in foreign countries in order to steal both dies and samples. If he had been a ForIntel bot, he might have actually been weak sauce. However, as a syndicate bot, he'd made sure to use the solidness of his shape as a substrate for plenty of armor in both modes, and to still be able to use his "printing" aspects as a huge stamping crusher while in robot mode. His name was Coin, and he was well-known for turning his opponents into coins.

If Pesticide beat the nameless mugger, this one would be the next to come up to demand not only the mugger's body, but everything he owned as well. If the mugger won, he would do the same - it didn't matter to him who won, just as long as the fight weakened the target enough to allow for his own victory.

[Vallermoore]

Crack Street, Cybertron


As the battle went on, it soon acquired an audience, and not all of them want to watch. Many were gangsters in their own right, even more formidable then the average Decepticon, which was saying something. Pesticide had taken about 15% damage by the time he finally busted the dents and made small cracks in the Faraday cage, and then let loose with his pony magic, hoping to fry or at least partly fry his foe's electronics. Without a spare, wounds were of course more severe for him then the average bot. All bots except the very poor generally had at least one spare tucked away somewhere, the middle class had several, and the very rich might have hundreds or even thousands of spares. He had decided that if another bot decided to fight him after this it was time to try the other pony spell he knew well-teleportation. He could teleport just behind the bot and then blast with full power at point blank range. All he needed to do was crack the Faraday cage-which was much harder with some bots then others if their armour was thicker, and he could let loose lightning on the unfortunate bot's insides. Amongst the watchers, some were just watching, at least one wanted to demand the body of the loser, and one had been sent by the ICC to observe how Pesticide handled himself and how brave he was as well. If he was a good fighter, brave, and avoided getting killed, perhaps he would indeed be of use to them. Many bots , indeed most bots,who were now ICC bots had once been put through dangerous tests of this kind to prove their worth to wear the ICC decals.

Base Temple

Loyal Star noted down in his mind's files everything expected of him, determined to be a proper base chaplain to the troops and show his superiors that he was a reformed Priest. When it was time for his first sermon, he made it interesting, on topic, and was careful to mention everything expected of him. It seemed to go down well enough as no bots fell asleep during it. This being the first sermon, no bot needed to be dragged out as a slacker this time.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack Street, Cybertron

It was with a yell of surprise that the would-be mugger found his motion boards suddenly offline as well as many minor controls in the area. His head had remained sequestered from the damage, but this mainly allowed him to fully perceive it as his body came to a halt. Quickly, he assessed the damage and realized that his arms would still work if he ran the motion control commands through part of his mind-boards, and he silently made the shift. Then, he pretended to be offline, hoping to catch his foe off-guard and at least even up the results.

Whether or not Pesticide was fooled, however, would turn out to be a moot point soon. Coin began to march forward with the full intention of taking that "deactivated" body and anything else he could get. Now, both of the original combatants had an incentive to not let this new guy win.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Base Temple

While nobody fell asleep on him, most of the troops saw Loyal Star as part of the overarching military apparatus - an as-yet personalityless fixture provided by the government to further its agenda. They said nothing as they filed out into the planet's yellowish day, and soon, were back to their usual business.

The Planet Next Door

This planet, which was slightly more primitive than Earth had been at the time of the Invasion, didn't spend much government funding on looking at its neighbor. In fact, it was still divided into separate countries, and most of these countries were too busy looking at each other to pay much attention to space. That, however, didn't stop amateur astronomers from staring through their telescopes, expecting to be able to spot and identify well-known features of their neighbor such as craters and mountains.

It was these amateurs who were the first to notice that now, along with said craters and mountains, there were now a few thousand massive robots and a military base.

So far, things had gone much like they had on Earth, and the expected progression continued when those in developed countries began to call in to their local space agencies with their findings. This, however, was not Earth. Almost immediately, it did something different: Its space agencies reoriented their telescopes, and within a few days, the astronomic communities around the planet were well aware that there were not only "giant robots" who had set up shop, but they were Decepticons in particular - and thanks to sporadic raiding, this planet knew what Decepticons were.

Quietly, states of national emergency were declared. No announcements were made to the public yet, but behind closed doors, military generals, presidents, dictators, intelligence personnel, and others were deep in discussions. Those with military ordnance of note quickly ordered it moved closer to refineries and oil fields, while weaker nations concentrated on building shelters "in case of natural disaster."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, Decepticon surveillance both on the target planet and at the military base picked up this activity. They figured it would be nothing but mere annoyance, but a directive still came down that operations were to be accelerated - there was no point in just letting a target get fully ready. Empty cargo-bots also arrived - they would take part in the first wave of looting. Loyal Star got an order to bless the First Excursionary Force, which would be the ones to mount the opening assault, in a concise but rousing ceremony.

[Vallermoore]

Crack Street, Cybertron

As Coin marched forward enough to be hostile and raised his blasters, Pesticide decided to see if he still had his teleportation magic, although not to run from the fight. With a loud bang he vanished and appeared right behind Coin, blasting him in the back with the maximum force that his blasters provided. If that didn't pierce the tough armour, he planned to repeat the trick, making it hard for Coin to get his blasters focussed properly on him whilst hopefully breaking down the armour enough to break the comparatively weak Faraday cage inside and deliver a burst of lighting to his innards. He was careful all this time, despite his lack of spares, to leave his jammer off. If he outright killed one of the gangsters here, first a whole gang might seek revenge, and second, he might have killed an ICC member, which might not go down too well with the rest of the ICC.

Base Temple

On the morning of the Blessing, Loyal Star said to his congregation "You are the finest lifeform in the Universe, following the finest God in the Universe. Unlike the puny biologicals that you will soon be destroying in battle, death can only get his hooks into you through either horrible bad luck or great stupidity. And I'm sure not a single bot amongst you is stupid." He paused for a moment or two. In fact he was asking Megatron if he had permission to lay down a blessing, not wanting to risk angering Megatron and getting his wires supernaturally burned out or worse. Megatron's anger was terrible. Luckily this time, he got the OK for a minor blessing from Megatron, and said "In the name of Megatron, I bless you with good luck. If sheer bad luck would mean that if you are destroyed, you die, instead you will make it back to the Military Save Vault safely. Go now, and show those biologicals what living machines are capable of." Soon enough, the First Excursionary Force set off, excited to do battle and sure that the worst that could happen was the loss of a body. Loyal Star was tempted to join in but was told to stay on the base at least for now. Internally, he wondered if he was doing well as a base chaplain. Well, I haven't been burned out with godly power or had a hit squad sent here from Domintel so I must be doing something right.

Target Planet

This was a human planet with no ponies or changelings except for a very few diplomats from other planets. Their military tech was at about the level of North Korea, which had some compensations. It's cannons and ack ack guns were unjammable and it had no computers to take over or spread dissent with. It's peace movements were relatively small and it had a general idea of what it was facing.