An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack Street, Cybertron

Coin lurched forward from the power of the double-blast, and smoke came from his scorched paint and first couple of layers of armor. He immediately spun around, his minting components now active and a once-hidden grabber arm reaching out in hopes of snaring Pesticide and turning him into a few million quarters that he'd be able to spend in some foreign land.

What Coin didn't realize is that the mugger was not completely offline, but instead, only paralyzed from the waist down. As soon as he turned his back, he was assailed in the back of the head by a couple of blasts from that one, who also wanted to preserve his functionality well enough to crawl home and transfer directly to a spare, which he would use to make repairs on his damaged form.

Deep in the shadows of the Crack and Addams Energon establishment, a bot watched with darkened eyes and a quiet engine. It was Connect, and he had become more interested in this fight than usual thanks to Pesticide's teleportation abilities. Pesticide would be very deadly, Connect figured, at least if that ability was used to its fullest. Too bad Pesticide hadn't done his Military stint yet, and was planning to enter the Genociders afterwards too...

Outside, the battle raged on, with Coin now beset from both ends by hostile fire. So far his armor was holding, but he hadn't expected both of the original combatants to still be at least somewhat functional when he had approached...

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

Planet to be Raided

The governments of this planet wasted no time in going ahead and sounding their public alarms when their telescopes saw an entire formation of Decepticons take off and head right for them. Soldiers stood ready at their cannons - which were not the cannonball kind, but a few generations better - and ack-ack guns in hopes of protecting their oil stores. They could tell that this was what the robots were after thanks to the large contingent of cargo-bots, whose flight speeds indicated that they were currently empty.

Meanwhile, Loyal Star had to stay behind at the Temple. As the base chaplain, he would not be having any fun of the battle variety unless an enemy made it to his location. Instead, for the duration of this assignment, he would be a functionary who - though currently serving the spiritual needs of the troops - was actually part of the Temple apparatus rather than the Military.

[Vallermoore]

Crack Street, Cybertron

Because Coin was distracted by an unexpected blast in the head from the injured mugger bot, Pesticide was able to dodge being grabbed. He teleported again behind Coin, this time slightly out of range of his grabbing arm, and blasted the damaged bit again, destroying another two layers of armour but still unable to breach the Faraday cage so he could launch magical lightning at his foe. As he did so he asked the fallen mugger "Shall we team up until this strong bot is defeated?" If the other bot said yes, and meant it, the two could tag team the powerful bot with a greater chance of breaking through his extra strong armour. If they survived, the two bots would probably carry on fighting unless the other bot surrendered, in which case (due to the fact he had no spare yet and would die if he lost his body) Pesticide would let his foe crawl away with a warning that if they fought again it would be to the body at least. He would then take the body of Coin to a nearby foundry and himself to a nearby metal shop so he could patch up his armour with new armour sheets. When he had enough Energon, if he lived that long, the first thing he would buy was a spare body. If he had to fight the other bot too and won, both bodies would be foundry fodder and he'd get more Energon that way.

Deep inside the Crack and Addams Energon establishment, a very important bot who at first had very little interest was now watching the fight. Very few bots had teleportation skills, and these skills could be of great use to a bot like Connect, not only for killing his foes but for robbery of mansions and the like that even the ICC had trouble getting into, such was the security. As a Genocider however, Pesticide would not be able to take the tests to join the ICC as a candidate and then a full member, which was why Connect's eyes were rather dark instead of glowing brightly at this moment in time. Pesticide was taking damage, but his teleportation ability helped him avoid a lot of it and get closer and closer to breaking through Coin's well protected Faraday cage.

Planet to be Raided

As both sides made their final plans for battle, Loyal Star would be staying behind, but if the foe made a surprise raid on the planet somehow, he would certainly be able to fight then without censure from anyone. He was self-disciplined and didn't mind staying there-years as a Ponyist priest followed by his Megatronist training made sure of that. Besides, he might be needed for something.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack Street

Connect took a sip of Supreme and watched the fight progress. He had turned his eyes off on purpose in order to avoid being a distraction and changing the outcome. He was even more impressed now, as he watched one of his chief minters get a challenge for the first time in years. Coin minting was very often overlooked - considered too small of potatoes to even bother with, let alone make bodies just to do it, but it served the ICC well. Many foreign enemies disappeared, without even a trace of their cars left behind, and hardly any cops even thought of checking the "carny guys" turning in their quarters at the banks.

"So is that the guy who wanted to be our latest temporary problem solver?" The dark-painted bot came through the shadows, expertly avoiding the dining tables and chairs.

"Yeah. He's pretty good. Looks like we're going to have to deploy a different minter to Epsilon..." Connect grunted as he accepted a delivery of crack cocaine from the other bot as though it were more unusual than a sample of grocery store chocolate. "But he wants to be a Genocider. We've got to try to talk him out of that if he passes our tests and does well on the job. You know how the government never likes to let anyone get back out of The Battalion. Not that I can't get it done, of course...but it sure ain't cheap or easy!"

The chemical company bot nodded, his un-dimmed eyes bobbing like odd red flashlights in the darkness. Connect ordered him to turn off those lights - "we want them to watch each other, not us."

Outside

The mugger bot quickly, but insincerely, agreed to Pesticide's idea. In reality, he figured he'd blast the stranger the second the two of them dispatched Coin, and then cannibalize any parts that would replace his damaged ones. This sure beat his old plan of trying to crawl home, he figured!

Meanwhile, the two Scroungers began to come back down the street, now with two half-dead bodies in their carts. They instantly saw that there were too many onlookers to just take whoever lost this fight, but they also saw that all of the combatants had accumulated some serious damage. "Let's wait for the winner to get away from all of these potential challengers and then top up our cart for a good night's pickin'" One of the Scroungers said to the other. The other agreed, and they took up a position near an alley that would likely be used as an escape route.

As all of this was going on, Coin suddenly showed that he was no untrained street fighter. As Pesticide and the former mugger paid attention to each other for those two seconds or so to make their deal, he let off a powerful blast at Pesticide's command cable. This, however, was mainly a distraction. In one smooth move, he used his grabber arm to yank the stricken mugger into his minting machinery, and it became immediately obvious that this part of Coin was the most heavily-armored of his entire body. The mugger's full-powered blasts did little more than scorch the paint as his head, neck, and then chest were sucked in and efficiently stamped into coins with brute force.

The entire event was quite a scary spectacle, with sparks and screaming giving way to metal rending and stamping noise as the hapless loser's boards went offline and he was forced to transfer from what had once been a decently-serviceable fighting body. Since Coin didn't have a coin reservoir big enough to hold the amount of disks produced by processing an entire other Decepticon, he soon began to "pay off," slot machine style, and spew coins all over the street. Countless ChingChing coins, all perfectly showing the face of the Queen of Vallermore, soon covered the road like metal snow - their markings holding no particular significance to the bystanders of Crack and Addams.

And that's when Coin felt his last layer of armor get penetrated, and the tiniest "paper cut" slice his Faraday cage from behind. With a horrified look, he realized that just for an instant, he'd gotten too far into the visceral sensation of using his own body to turn a foe not into plain scrap, but well-minted coinage...

Before Coin could even turn around, it was all but sealed. Pesticide's forehead was now glowing with magic - magic that was about to be unleashed.

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

Staging Area

Even though Loyal Star had been in the Military, he hadn't gotten a chance to see the true power of the Forces against an enemy that was not only underpowered, but that was NOT slated for deletion, enslavement, or any other time-consuming thing. He barely had a chance to step outside after vacuuming the Temple aisles when he heard the roar of cargo-bot engines, now laboring under full loads, and their ever-present escorts. Soon enough, he saw them land, one after the other, on the runway he'd helped build earlier. The escorts quickly transformed back to robot mode, cheering and whooping, as other troops rushed to the cargo-bots with huge oil-pumping hoses to unload them. Though the cargo-bots said little during this operation, their engines began to purr with satisfaction. Even they enjoyed a super-easy raiding mission.

This type of activity would go on for about 24 hours, but surprisingly, not longer. By then, the target planet would be all out of stored oil and other petroleum products. Since the Decepticons didn't want to bother to set up their own high-speed rigs for this operation, all they would have to do for a while was wait. Eventually, their "oil bees" would refill the tanks at the fields and refineries, and the "beekeepers" would come again...

"You starting to see how beautifully it all works together?" The voice surprised Loyal Star. When he turned around, he was surprised to see a bot displaying a new set of the Skull-and-Wrenches. "We come in and do the dirty work that most shy away from, but after we're done, it's like having God mode on for the regulars. Thanks to US, there won't be any opposition as they drain that place dry. By the time that backward little burg -" he pointed over the horizon at the entire target planet -" even conceives of weapons that could deter us, it won't have a drop of oil left to produce it with." The successful Genocider gloated with a wide, smug grin.

"Of course, some of those countries have had some science fiction writers give them ideas already, long before we came in force. Wind power, nuclear fusion and fission, and even antimatter are in the consciousness of their developed nations' peoples. But it'll be really hard for them to use those ideas when they have to do their math by candlelight and their facility-building with mules! Ha ha, by the time they figure it out, 'the Decepticons' will be considered cultural legends, not a real people for them to get revenge on." It was clear that this guy thought he had it all figured out, and equally clear that he had read his Military Manual100% uncritically when it presented its overall ideas.

Loyal Star listened with a friendly smile. So far, everything was indeed working with textbook ease.

[Vallermoore]

Crack Street

As the fight went on, Pesticide took a blast to his command cable that was fended off by his armour. Two or three more blasts in that area would break through. The mugger bot was much less lucky, being grabbed by Coin and fed into his minting machinery which happened at this moment to be set to producing forgeries of the Vallermoorian Chingching, turning his body into coins-so many coins that they showered out of Coin like a gambling machine paying off, and pinged and bounced all over the metal street, later to be recycled by scroungers with a small "s". At that moment Pesticide broke through Coin's Faraday Cage just a tiny bit, and as he had no hoorn, his whole forehead started glowing with magic. One second later, he sent pony magic lighting, a huge amount of it, arcing over and into Coin's body-and through the small cut in the Faraday cage into the wires and electronics, the softest part of a Decepticon. Coin was now in danger of being killed outright before he could mind transfer. The many bots watching the fight clapped and cheered at Pesticide's fighting skills. A bot that could take down a tougher more heavily armoured bot was a bot that one could feel impressed by. And it wasn't just average bots that were impressed.

Watching with his eye light turned to it's lowest setting , having left his seat further back when things got interesting, was none other then the Boss of the entire ICC, Connect. Seeing one of his chief minters, a tough bot even by ICC standards, getting fried with pony magic lightning, he realized that this unknown bot who came asking for a job could fight-and could fight well, which was the first test for any bot wanting to do jobs for the ICC. Another bot came up to watch the battle. "So is that the guy who wanted to be our latest temporary problem solver?"

"Yeah. He's pretty good. Looks like we're going to have to deploy a different minter to Epsilon...But he wants to be a Genocider. We've got to try to talk him out of that if he passes our tests and does well on the job. You know how the government never likes to let anyone get back out of The Battalion. Not that I can't get it done, of course...but it sure ain't cheap or easy! Turn those lights down...we want them to watch each other, not us." A second later the other bot obeyed, bright eyes winking out like torches being turned off. Other lesser bots, with their eye lights turned down, were watching not that far away, as this battle was getting epic. The Scroungers were watching as well as the fight went on.

Staging Area

Soon enough the cargo bots came back, happy for once and full of oil. "You starting to see how beautifully it all works together?" Loyal Star turned and a Genocider was standing there, his Skull and Wrenches symbol glittering. "We come in and do the dirty work that most shy away from, but after we're done, it's like having God mode on for the regulars. Thanks to US, there won't be any opposition as they drain that place dry. By the time that backward little burg even conceives of weapons that could deter us, it won't have a drop of oil left to produce it with.Of course, some of those countries have had some science fiction writers give them ideas already, long before we came in force. Wind power, nuclear fusion and fission, and even antimatter are in the consciousness of their developed nations' peoples. But it'll be really hard for them to use those ideas when they have to do their math by candlelight and their facility-building with mules! Ha ha, by the time they figure it out, 'the Decepticons' will be considered cultural legends, not a real people for them to get revenge on."

"If the planet itself is not destroyed, then we don't need slaves to produce the oil. They can be like bees, capable of giving little stings if care is not taken, but all the time gathering oil for us to harvest and use and we don't have to feed and water and guard them either. Isn't it great just to be a Decepticon bot, tougher then any biological could ever be?" Loyal Star replied.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Before Coin could really understand what was even going on, the damage he had thought was trivially minor turned out to be the start of massive and fatal destruction. His eyes momentarily glowed not with excited battle-light, but instead, with the million or so volts of overloading energy that blew out his eye panels from within. In an instant, the lightning stopped - and so did he. The acrid stench of fried metal and electronics filled the air as he became like a statue, with what was left of the mugger still sticking gruesomely out of his torso.

Pesticide reached down and calmly took a handful of coins as souvenirs before starting to maneuver himself to lift the unholy-looking "conjoined twins" of Coin and the mugger's body over just one shoulder for transport to whatever foundry was open at this hour. He made sure to keep one arm, and its blaster, ready to deter anyone else who got overly ambitious.

Down the street, the Scroungers came out of the alley. They no longer wanted to fight, seeing that this new guy could turn minor damage into death in an instant! After making a cursory pickup of the bulk of the coins - the easiest ones to pick up - they threw those in their cart and went to their normal recycler to get their haul turned into Energon. They found themselves waiting for service behind Pesticide, mainly because the newcomer had found out that this was the only place nearby that was open. Like the Scroungers themselves, he didn't want to keep walking around with such awkward and heavy loot. Better to just accept whatever this smallish foundry paid than end up being easy to rob.

~~~~~~~~~

Connect was very impressed, and even moreso when he did NOT get a secret signal from Coin to indicate a successful mind-transfer. That showed that Pesticide had what it took to truly solve the ICC's problems as well as those of their customers. Of course, it also meant that Connect would have to dispatch an underling to restore Coin from a Save, and reorder Coin's rank to be below that of Pesticide's as long as the latter was around - but to him, those were basic tasks. He did both with efficiency, and wondered what trouble Pesticide would get into, or cause, during the next few days and nights. For now, the action visible from the speakeasy seemed to be done with, with regular poor scroungers now in the streets with their debris carts, so he turned his eyes and engine both back to full detectability. The nearby underlings seamlessly took the cue and did the same.

~~~~~~~~~~
Staging Area

Before long, the rest of the troops returned, whooping and hollering like the new conscripts many of them were. There wasn't a big need for an experienced force for this operation - a fact that surely would have aggravated the targets if they knew.

On the target planet, what was clear was that none of the nations there stood a military chance. The few interplanetary diplomats realized this too, and now, their small civilian and lightly-guarded craft could be seen evacuating from various embassies around the planet. Most went their separate ways - clearly either going back home or to other planets where they had safe haven - but there was one exception.

Soon, a short and low-priority alarm sounded once. Some alien was coming in the direction of the staging area. A cursory check showed that, by Decepticon standards, the craft was just a personal or diplomatic variety, but with enough weapons to deter a PMT-grade random attacker...one just a bit more advanced than the target planet's strongest countries. It would be no threat to the Decepticons,and unless its pilot(s) were insane, it would not initiate an attack.

"They probably want to pull tricks, or at best, rope us into helping with some war they're losing," the base commander said with some pessimism. "Let'em land, but if they propose a really bad deal, feel free to maintain our dignity in the most efficient way." This, of course, meant to open fire in the case of anything deemed insulting.

[Vallermoore]

Crack Street

Before Coin even knew what had happened to him, he had been fried as millions of volts worth of pony-magic lightning seared his now vulnerable and fragile electronic insides-before he even had a chance to mind transfer. If it were not for the fact that he would soon be restored from a Save Disc-he was far too good an earner to the ICC to just be left dead and in the afterlife-he could easily have been left dead for good. Pesticide was clearly not a weak bot that could be easily overpowered and killed and be showing this he was earning respect-including in some very high places. Connect himself had left what he was doing to watch this fight-and he was impressed. Very impressed. It seemed that Pesticide had what it took, and he could have one of the bots under him send Pesticide-once he had sold the bodies and fixed his wounds, on a job. If he carried that out properly, then clearly he would be an asset to the ICC and could solve it's problems with rival bots for certain. Not knowing he was being watched by such a powerful and high ranking bot, Pesticide snatched up a handful of Chingchings-(and a Decepticon handful of Chingchings was a lot of money from a human or pony Vallermoorian's point of view) scooped up the bodies, and took them away to the nearest foundry. None of the bots in the crowd wanted to fight him for the bodies in case they lost the battle.

Most of the spilt coins would go not to scroungers but to Scroungers with a capital S. After getting the Energon from the bodies, it was not enough for a whole new body so he went to a nearby mechanic selling armour and brought armour and rearmoured all the damaged bits, as well as thickening his general armour slightly, not enough to slow him down or interfere with transforming. He placed a copper finish over the damaged bits, giving the deliberate appearance of a scarred fighter who had taken wounds yet survived and come out on top, and was not a bot to be attacked or picked on with impunity. Once he was fixed, with a few leftover Cubes in his panels, he returned to his place outside Crack and Addams, determined to stay there to prove to the ICC that he had what it took to be of use to them if it took weeks. As it turned out, a bot of mid-rank , the ICC equvilent of a mafia capo, proudly wearing an ICC decal, came out not to try and kill him but to talk to him.

Staging Area

The conscripts were in a good mood. Soon enough, various embassies evacuated and headed home at FTL speeds, but one headed towards the Decepticons. "They probably want to pull tricks, or at best, rope us into helping with some war they're losing. Let'em land, but if they propose a really bad deal, feel free to maintain our dignity in the most efficient way," said the base commander. Loyal Star wondered who it was. Humans? Sapient ponies? Aliens of some kind? The craft landed and an alien-like a human, but with tentacles with suckers and claws on them for hands, got out and bowed to the huge robots, any one of who could have blasted or just stepped on him in an instant. He wore a strange helmet that had a translation device in it, that translated what he said into rather accented but still understandable Binary. "I was wondering....would it be possible to hire you as mercenaries to deal with another nation that we dislike? We would pay you well in oil of high quality, plus all the oil of the other nation." Clearly, this alien didn't know that Decepticon law prevented Decepticons acting as mercs for biologicals, because it was beneath their dignity. It would be like humans or sapient ponies acting as mercs for ants or dragonflies.
.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Foundry

The Scroungers gave Pesticide a respectful nod as he passed them on his way out. Unlike Connect, they were glad about the rumors that he meant to join the Genociders + that meant it wouldn't be long before he would no longer be a potential threat to them!

"Be sure to mark yourself with your kill count," one helpfully suggested. "Two kills aren't something to brag about, true, but I can tell that you're going to get a lot more - and it's always more impressive when people can see the number of marks growing."

Pesticide's next stop, an armory, wouldn't be able to help him for hours - it was closed for the night. Luckily, those who were aware had seen the battle, and for now, left him alone. When the store opened, he upgraded, but took the unusual...and perhaps unstrategic...step of showing off where repairs had been done.

In hidden locations, low-level ICC members were not nearly as suddenly-peaceful as they'd been acting. Small groups devised and plotted battle tactics, determined not to just let this new guy become the boss of their stretches of turf.

Later, when Pesticide returned to his position, an official ICC bot came up to talk.
"You did well last night," he began. "But The Syndicate doesn't take on an adjunct based on what could have been a lucky outcome. As you show your skills, you also show your worthiness - not only to us, but as an opponent to those with better fighting skills than the ones who took you on last night. We will be watching over a few more nights to see if you have what it takes for real, or if you'll end up as a short-term topic of interest at the Quick Drinks..."

~~~~~~~~~

Staging Area

The alien, with his blatant proposal, was quickly brushed off by the Base Commander with a bland recitation of the Decree Against Being Under the Command of Foreigners and Foreign Agents. The other troops also showed no interest in the offer, though for some, it was surely because they already had a commitment: the conscription stints they were already on.

This diplomat would have to be a lot more subtle and savvy to have a chance of a "Steel Calvary" coming to his aid. The first thing he would need to do is look in the right place, and a relatively regulation-bound location like a military base wasn't it. He would also need to couch his request in the shady language of those who needed plausible deniability if they were investigated by DomIntel.

He would need "help." "Help" with his "problem." The sort of "one time solution" that only certain specialists could provide, and that would surely increase their chances of "finding" all that oil...more than regular raiding would bring in...

But alas, this was a diplomat, not a Mafia negotiator. He wouldn't have a clue where to start. Until now, in fact, he didn't realize that even among the Decepticons, some things were more for sale than others. Practically everything was indeed for sale, of course. It was just that for certain categories of goods and services, one had to do more than just blatantly ask. One had to know the right person, and talk in the right, coded, ways.

The disappointed diplomat asked if he could rest a while before traveling on. In response, the Commander pointed him to the Temple, figuring that he might as well give Loyal Star the chance to fill the alien's head with some Megatronist propaganda.

[Vallermoore]

Foundry

Pesticide politely thanked the Scroungers and had two small Decepticon head decals put on one of his blasters. At the moment, it was a very low kill count, but if he survived long enough and it grew, it would gradually grow more impressive. Once he had in effect healed his wounds (one of the few negative things about being a bot was that wounds never healed by themselves) and headed back to his place outside Crack and Addams an ICC bot came-but not to try and kill him this time, but to talk.
"You did well last night," he began. "But The Syndicate doesn't take on an adjunct based on what could have been a lucky outcome. As you show your skills, you also show your worthiness - not only to us, but as an opponent to those with better fighting skills than the ones who took you on last night. We will be watching over a few more nights to see if you have what it takes for real, or if you'll end up as a short-term topic of interest at the Quick Drinks..."

Pesticide gave a respectful bow. "I will be here as long as it takes-until I either get killed, you accept me...or I get my first conscription stint, in which case I will show you the papers. We both know what happens to draft dodging Decepticons, and I didn't join the finest form of life in the universe to get executed for treason."

The ICC bot nodded. "You should have enough time to prove yourself before that happens-if you don't end up as foundry food first. If you survive the next day or two, you should buy a spare as you'll need it." He turned and went back inside.

Meanwhile, various small groups of three to four bots were organizing within the ICC, with the aim of violently removing Pesticide one way or another.. The bot he had beaten, Coin, had been a capo, and commanded over thirty bots in all in various areas. These bots were not happy at the thought of being commanded by a newcomer who they knew nothing about, and wanted it nipped in the bud. One group that had fought against Equestria before had decided to armour up the area around their Faraday Cages, to make it much harder for him to fry their electronics with his dammed pony magic. Another group was planning to try and kill him by trickery with things like poisoned Energon. A third group had decided that stronger blasters was the way to go. Luckily, they were not going to attack at the same time, but it would be a real challenge all the same. If he beat all these groups, another capo was considering trying to kill him, as he and Coin got on very well.

Staging Area

The Base Commander gave a loud snort of disgust and made it clear that a blatant offer like this was not going to work. He was in the wrong place going about it the wrong way. He was given permission to stay for one night on the base and pointed towards Loyal Star, who was interested in this to him tiny alien and gave him enough oxygen to breath safely. "What brings you to this Temple? Most biologicals stay far away from Decepticons for the same reason that wild animals don't let humans stroke them."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack and Addams

After loitering for several hours Pesticide's increasing boredom and desire to defrag were both removed by what appeared to be a gang coming to test both their mettle and their Metal against his own. They swaggered down Addams with clear purpose, keeping him in sight at all times.

These gangsters looked new, but that was a bad sign - new bodies were harder to defeat!! The newest parts, however, were the ones Pesticide didn't see: The wiring, meticulously wrapped in individual sheaths of Faraday insulation. By having them all done separately, they ensured that any damage they sustained would be limited to whatever had been directly damaged prior to exposure to lightning magic. To put it another way, it would not be possible to cause serious damage just by making an opening in their standard Faraday cage and then blasting away. Now, for them, every individual wire and chip had a cage of its own.

These upgrades, of course, had been neither cheap nor easy. Only their connections with the ICC made it possible for them to have the changes made so quickly. Still, the hows aside, they believed they were now ready to assert their ranks.

The group continued to approach Pesticide, and menacingly, fanned out into a battle position when they got remotely close. Bystanders formed into a different position - one meant to ensure a good view while minimizing the chance of being hit by stray blasts. Unlike in most areas, however, the businesses did not drop blast shades. Instead, they had blaster-proof glass that could withstand pretty much any normal gangland weaponry. Inside these places, people could actually be seen coming to these safety windows to gawk, though Connect didn't appear to be among them.

"You can see what we're here for, outsider!" The group leader yelled over to Pesticide. "Either leave now and never return, or die gallantly on this street right now!"

With the challenge now official, Pesticide had to either fight to the body or fly away like a coward. He ignored the gang's implication that fighting would necessarily result in his defeat. That was just typical blustering from a gang.

~~~~~~~~~

Staging Area

"Your base commander said I could spend the night in here, " the diplomat responded, seeming at least as bewildered as Loyal Star came across. "I suppose it's because a temple isn't a strictly military building." He stared at the surroundings, taking everything in like a tourist.

Only after looking at touristy things like the murals on the walls and the architecture of the ceiling, a ceiling he found disappointingly basic, did he look at the obvious main attractions. For some reason, he felt compelled to give the Face of Megatron a nod, though he completely ignored the Statue as a piece of furniture. This let Loyal Star know that the alien could at least somewhat sense life energy.

Finally, now that he had his bearings, he turned to the priest with his swirling paint. "Nothing low-key about Megatronism!" He observed. "But there must be something a bit on the down-low about your Way. It's well known that everything that isn't a state secret is sold by the Decepticons, but when I tried to hire a fighting force, your commander turned me down flat. Since we're in private, I'll ask what I did wrong...and what does it take to get some mercs?"

Loyal Star groaned inside. Yes, it was probably true that some gang or other might take such a gig despite the Decree to the contrary, but the average person wouldn't touch it. Decepticons did want even the appearance of following the orders of any foreigners - such things were far beneath the majestic robots! Not only that, foreigners were seen as incompetent, unfit to lead even themselves, and therefore wholly unfit to have the boss position that would come from funding a military operation. Anyone willing to take this guy's job would therefore have to be seriously desperate or extremely greedy, and he would never agree if he didn't have some way to deny the existence of the arrangement!

Outwardly, Loyal Star decided to stall a bit, and offered to talk about Megatronism in general at first. Giving a quick tour of the small temple would provide some time to think up the best way to respond to this alien.

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

Pesticide was getting rather bored without much to do, when suddenly four bots in new gleaming bodies converged upon his position and fanned out into a position where they could shoot him from three sides at once, the other side being blocked by buildings. "You can see what we're here for, outsider! Either leave now and never return, or die gallantly on this street right now!" Pesticide knew that there was a chance he might be destined for the afterlife, but if he had to die, so be it. If he somehow managed to vanquish four bots, he could not only repair himself but could also buy his first spare body with all that Energon. If he died, he knew he wouldn't be bound for the Realm of Punishment or Tartarus has he had never been or considered being a traitor. "I'm not going," he said, moving to meet them. Bots scuttled out of the way of where the blaster fire would soon be flying about, and they watched with interest. None thought one average bot had a chance against four. As the bots started blasting, Pesticide teleported out a few feet of the way and the first salvo from the bots ended up lightly injuring each other. He would try and make it so the bots risked friendly fire and would be a little hesitant to shoot for fear of injuring their friends. Quickly they changed their formation so fire would only go one way, as they hated friendly fire.

Soon enough both Pesticide, despite his teleporting ability, and the other bots, were taking damage, and when he thought it was the right time, Pesticide let his pony lightning loose, but whilst it did create wounds, it didn't win him the fight. One of the opposing bots had a blaster short out in a shower of sparks, one had his left leg stop working, one lost a single mind board of the many he had, but the fourth had a panel pop open to reveal several Cubes of Energon inside. Pesticide blasted the Cubes which blew up and took every last one of the bot's motion boards with them, making him fall to the ground, temporarily helpless until he could use some of his mind boards as motion boards, which would make his movements slow and clumsy and his aim poorer then a human, at least for a short time. Pesticide may have brought down one of his foes and injured the other three, but if he had common sense he would teleport away now. Instead he teleported himself directly over the head of the one-legged bot and let himself fall, hoping to knock the bot down and blast him at close range directly in the head. If he could lower the odds to two bots with three working blasters between them, he had a chance to win this fight before he was blasted to death.

Staging Area

"I can legally say this-it is illegal for Decepticons to act as mercs for biologicals because they are above mere biological life. I can't help you directly in such a way or Domintel-Domestic Intelligence, our secret police, will find me guilty of treason, and that carries the death penalty, and the Realm of Punishment after death. But there is no law against me helping you spiritually as a cleric. Here is an alien sized book of Megatron-perhaps within it's pages you can find what you need to help your nation act in a Decepticon way and by using our Way you may overpower our foes by getting in touch with your mind's inner Decepticon." He gave the alien a book his size from one of his panels. How small the alien looked. Loyal Star remembered when he himself had been a sapient pony and how large full size Decepticons had seemed to him.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack and Addams
Pesticide was taken aback when his magic didn't immediately take the gang offline, but he recorded quickly and soon inflicted major damage with other methods. One bot was especially chagrined to find that the extra Energon storage he had installed as an upgrade had become his downfall as his opponent used it as a bomb. Now, he could only hope that the other gang members kept his adversary occupied until his compensation routine was complete.

The one-legged bot couldn't see where Pesticide had gone, but he quickly realized when the rest of the functional members of the gang all opened fire on a spot over his head. To his chagrin, however, he did not next get rained on with a shower of shrapnel. Instead, Pesticide came clanging down on him, and the two fell over each other in a heap. Pesticide's plan had worked okay so far, but now, he realized that an opponent's still-working body did not provide solid footing by any stretch. On the ground together, both combatants quickly tried to position themselves to get shots in on each other.

The rest of the gang stood nearby, but didn't blast out of fear that they'd hit their own member. Soon, though, blasts did ring out - but from both Pesticide and his opponent, who had succeeded in finding their openings while still on their butts from the collision.

Staging Area

The diplomat graciously accepted the copy of the Book of Megatron, silently making a mental note of how DomIntel's presence was presumed to exist even way out here.

He'd figured it'd be safer to discuss hiring mercs in such a remote place; in reality, it seemed, everyone expected ubiquitous surveillance in all Decepticon territories! What he didn't even think of was that DomIntel wasn't even the only spy agency in the immediate vicinity. MilIntel was currently listening in, glad for the chance to hear something other than barracks talk.

Before leaving, he cast his eyes around the temple, knowing that for him, one dedicated to Megatron could be a once in a lifetime sight. Soon, his eyes landed on an image of Megatron gloriously throwing Prime into the slag. The victory, as depicted, seemed lopsided even though some damage was shown on Megatron to hint that there'd been at least some kind of a fight before the moment captured in the bas relief.

"So that's what happened to Optimus Prime!" The diplomat exclaimed, turning his gaze back to Loyal Star. "Is that how it really happened, or has some...religious mythology affected the portrayal?"

Loyal Star would be within his rights to admit that the images in the Temple were all of the genre the Decepticons called "heroic." This style was not limited to religious use, but was actually common in all of the arts of the Decepticon people. In this genre, true events were at the root of a scene, but the hero - Megatron, in this case - was shown performing his role as if it were easy (when in reality, it was quite difficult).

Decepticons were all very familiar with the Decepticon Heroic style, AND the true versions of the stories it portrayed, so they never had to ask such things. This diplomat, on the other hand, apparently was not...or, he could have been playing dumb to see if Loyal Star would admit to the facts.

Either way, he was, for some reason, familiar with the image and name of the Autobot leader...

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

Pesticide didn't let his shock show. He may not have knocked these bots offline but he had damaged them. If he blasted enough and then used his lightning again, it would damage more parts of the bots-if he was still alive by then. With no spare yet he was fighting for his life. Both bots struggled in hand to hand combat whilst the two other bots who were still in the fight waited, not wanting to risk blasting their fellow gang member. Both bots got a blast in. Pesticide had lost two motion boards, but his foe was hit worse and was down to his very last mind board and was considering mind transferring to a spare by now. To give himself some time to compensate, Pesticide used his teleporting ability to go from place to place within the immediate area until he could fight at full strength and speed, and the fight carried on. Pesticide was at 63% damage by the time he used his lightning again, this time with more success. One of his foes dropped to the ground and did not get up, another was still online but his speed and skill were very much reduced, almost to a crawl, the third bot lost his other blaster, and the fourth bot was only lightly damaged, losing three fingers.

Running the calculations in his head, Pesticide realized he was more likely to lose then win, as at least one bot had all or almost all his boards intact, and decided on a risky strategy that would either put off at least the more damaged of the attackers-or cause the crowd (those who were not safely behind blast proof windows, which most were) to try and lynch him. "I have no spare body yet, I'm new," he roared in angry Binary. "So let's even things up, shall we?" He turned on his still undamaged jammer for the first time. "If I have to fight for my life, so do you! But I will turn my jammer off and let you mind transfer if you agree to yield to me, otherwise if I am for the Afterlife, so are you!" Hopefully, the bot with no blasters left and the bot that could barely move due to damage might yield rather then risk outright death, and then it would be a one on one and the odds were improved. By making it clear that he had no spare bodies yet, he was telling the crowd why he was doing such a risky thing-because he had nothing left to lose.

Staging Area

"So that's what happened to Optimus Prime! Is that how it really happened, or has some...religious mythology affected the portrayal?"

"A bit of both. Whilst these holy images are in the Heroic Style, our God Megatron really did overpower that hated truck and finish him off for good. If Optimus had won, he would have destroyed every Decepticon and ended our freewheeling, piratical way of life that is the Decepticon Way, and that has gained us a mighty Empire that will rule the Universe from end to end someday. There is a saying for those trying to do things deemed illegal in the Empire-Domintel knows all. If they were to think you were a spy or a threat to Cybertron or our Empire-it would not end well for you to say the least, or for any bot willing to help you. We put up with it because very few things are actually treasonous-that and we have a Treason File that we can access with a thought, so that if something is legally dodgy from our point of view we can access it. Domintel does not go after bots who have done and said nothing wrong just for the fun of blasting or executing them, or it would undermine loyalty and perhaps even provoke a revolution instead of stopping one." He did not mention Milintel-if this alien didn't already know of Milintel, he wasn't going to tell him it.

"I invite you to read about Megatron and see if Megatronism is for you. Perhaps it may help you defeat your foes by Deception and Conniving."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack and Addams

The three heavily damaged gang members gave grudging little bows and backed off, indicating their acceptance of defeat. The lightly damaged one, however, only paused for a moment, his engine noise betraying a bit of uncertainty. Soon, however, it revved with more confidence.

"I have hardly any damage, while you have a lot!" He hollered out. "And I have something you probably don't: saves." He said the last word with a combination of evil and confidence as he activated his own jammer. Now, Pesticide wouldn't be able to eliminate the jam at the last second if he was about to lose. Since he had no spares anyway, it wouldn't really matter - but his opponent didn't know if he was telling the truth or not.

In one quick move, the remaining adversary raised both of his blasters with the intent to fire. Pesticide could easily try to simply fire faster, or he could try something else - but there was no doubt that the last guy was not conceding yet. It would not only not be easy to fully defeat a gang operating as a subunit of the ICC - it would be downright difficult.

Staging Area

The diplomat involuntarily looked sad for moment when Loyal Star confirmed that Prime was dead metal, despite the admission that Megatron's win wasn't quite so easy. Loyal Star caught this and gave him a quizzical, yet penetrating, stare.

"Our history books and old diplomatic records talk of a time when we dealt with Optimus Prime," the alien explained, not realizing that he had just set off silent alarms at three Decepticon intelligence agencies, "and he is remembered as a staunchly honest dealer. We often sold him iron ore in exchange for technology, and the circuit boards we use in our spaceships today descends from that. But one day, we lost all contact. We knew he had been at war with you, and as we'd say, had likely bitten off more than he could chew. But we'd hoped he'd gone into exile somewhere..."

To Loyal Star, it was just a bit aggravating to hear of the National Villain spoken about in a good way. To MilIntel, however, the simple statement solved one of the Great War's mysteries: They now knew at least one of the sources of the ore that had allowed the Autobots to keep rebuilding when the Decepticons had figured they should have been out of materials. The information was sent to Megatron right away, and a live feed was established.

To MilIntel's dismay, nothing else juicy was said. The diplomat confirmed the time of the Final Battle, about 300 years in the past, and remarked that it was a bit too late to do anything about it now. Loyal Star agreed, while silently thinking that the alien must be from a seriously powerful nation to have even thought of doing anything "about it" at all.

Then, the diplomat accepted his Book of Megatron, and on his way out, was going to do the diplomatic thing and give the Face of Megatron a perfunctory bow, mainly to avoid dishonoring his host's traditions...

The Face was glowering with rage.

Suddenly, the Book of Megatron the diplomat held burst into white hot flames, burning his tentacles a bit before he could let go.

"My words and methods are not for the friends of AUTOBOTS!!!" Megatron shouted through the Face. "Nor are they for those that would mourn Prime! Now get out! You have one minute to get on your piece of counterfeit Autobot knockoff garbage and GET OFF MY BASE!"

With that, the diplomat took off running, and though he didn't quite manage to get through the takeoff sequence in a single minute, he was in the air within three.

"Harumph!" The Face said, clearly now under Megatron's full conscious control instead of the usual semi-subconscious connection it had when it wasn't inert. "The utter gall of that guy, trying to hire us when he was sad about my Victory! Biologicals are such clouds of exhaust sometimes. He's lucky it's been so long or I would order an invasion right now! I will be checking to see if they have interfered with us in any way post-war. If they have..."

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

Pesticide knew he had to act quickly. If the other bot started winning, he knew it would be in the Decepticon nature for the other three bots to reconsider surrendering and that would be the end of him. So he teleported behind the other bot and shot at point blank range in a blast aiming at his head, neck and back with both Decepticon blaster fire and pony lightning. As the bot spun around to shoot him, he teleported again behind him and again opened fire with everything he had. He was hoping to be able to get through the tough armour-and to manage to use his pony lightning to fry something really important before the bot worked out how to counter his teleportation somehow. If he could kill this bot and do it quickly, then turn off his jammer, the other three bots would indeed mind transfer to their spares. Then he had to work out a way to drag the four bodies to the foundry, get the worst of his wounds treated-and then buy and mind transfer to his first spare and resume his post outside Crack and Addams and stay there until either he was defeated and outright killed-or Connect thought it worth it to employ him as a problem solver for the IOPC.

Working for the IOPC would pay him enough Energon until the Military and then, he hoped, the Genocide Battalion, took him in. As a Genocider he would be fed. As Genociders were rarely-if indeed ever-allowed to raid independently-the Military had to feed them, not wanting them to starve to death. For now, the other three bots kept to their surrender deal and waited and watched the battle.

Staging Area

When Loyal Star mentioned that Optimus Prime was indeed dead, the alien looked unhappy at that and said "Our history books and old diplomatic records talk of a time when we dealt with Optimus Prime, "and he is remembered as a staunchly honest dealer. We often sold him iron ore in exchange for technology, and the circuit boards we use in our spaceships today descends from that. But one day, we lost all contact. We knew he had been at war with you, and as we'd say, had likely bitten off more than he could chew. But we'd hoped he'd gone into exile somewhere..." As he said those words, alarms went off at Domintel, Forintel and Milintel. General Soundwave was alerted within seconds and passed the message up to Megatron, who started watching through his holy Face. Loyal Star was not looking at the Face at the time, so didn't notice the dull glow in the eyes or the look of great anger on it. If he had done, he wouldn't have offered the alien any help. As the alien bowed to the Face, the Book of Megatron that he was carrying burst into white hot holy fire, burning his tentacles a little, and the face roared, making Loyal Star jump in shock. "My words and methods are not for the friends of AUTOBOTS!!! Nor are they for those that would mourn Prime! Now get out! You have one minute to get on your piece of counterfeit Autobot knockoff garbage and GET OFF MY BASE!" As the diplomat ran for his life, Loyal Star winced, expecting Megatron to use his godly power to burn out his wiring, but that didn't happen. "You genuinely didn't know that alien was an Autobot lover, Loyal Star," the Face said "so it would be unfair to punish you for offering help." Then it relaxed and went back to normal, and Loyal Star gave a deep sigh of relief that his God's anger was not aimed at him this time. Outside the alien got out off there into space as quickly as he could.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Domestic Intelligence Supercomputer Data Center

It had been a long time since Leader Megatron had been admitted through the heavily guarded, artillery-proof, metal clad concrete doors of this data center, and the guards bowed deeply as soon as he passed the many identity checks. Megatron gave them each a firm nod as he strode through with both regality and a definite sense of grim purpose.

Since Megatron's deification, he had not needed to use the Supercomputer for things like making appointments. Now, however, its ForIntel operational data would serve him well. Through ForIntel activity, the Supercomputer would already know what it would take Megatron a lot of concentration to discover from scratch: The location of every Autobot-tech ship belonging to that diplomat's country.

Soon, Megatron was planted in his reserved seat, and he jacked into the giant machine like he used to. Now, though, the addition of its power to his own made little difference - his quantum system far surpassed its binary-based capabilities in terms of raw power. It was still better than him at keeping track of surveillance since it was almost entirely dedicated to that task, but there would be no more sense of immense power from it felt by Megatron. He sighed a little, for that surge had once been one of his greatest pleasures.

Soon, however, the Supercomputer revealed its continued usefulness. A map showing each and every ship meeting his stated specs appeared in his mind. There were over 100,000 of them, all several iterations newer than the last Autobot Non-sapient board spec, but all based on it.

Megatron smiled, but with a grim overtone. This was indeed one of the planets that had made the War much harder than it needed to be. They, with this technology, were still profiting from that.

The diplomat, reckoning time through the eyes of a creature who likely thought of 100 years as a lifetime, had thought it was too late to reignite hostilities over a war that ended 300 years ago, long before he'd been born. But Leader Megatron was 749 years old. 300 years to him, was more like 20 or 30 to a humanoid. The pettiest things may have lost their fire, but the provision of what had been tons of ore to the Autobots, prolonging the War for years and even costing Decepticon lives - that was not petty. Megatron's rage still burned, and all of the memories had been brought to the forefront with the diplomat's simple words.

Megatron looked at the internal map and ran his multi-targeting programs.

10 light years away, Armageddon began.

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

Socialus

The people didn't see it coming, much less understand it, when their space-capable hovercrafts suddenly exploded into balls of flaming metal and were hurtled forcefully into the ground. Within mere moments, not a one was left flying, and after a small but terrible pause, the ones on the ground and in garages exploded forcefully as well.

Police and military installations went to high alert, only to find no obvious enemies. Terrorists, the usual suspects for explosions, were soon ruled out. The elusive leader of the nation's biggest enemy terror group had been killed in the maelstrom just like several of Socialus' own officials.

They didn't have to wait long to know who did it all.

Soon, Leader Megatron's face appeared, along with printed and spoken words.

" Your nation provided substantial aid to the Autobots! Did you think I would never find out? I have just destroyed the most prominent of your ill-gotten gains. The ships you made with their 'blood payments!' Payments for the ore that kept them going in their mission to try to destroy us! Now you shall suffer for joining with our enemies, and for mourning their wretched 'leader' even today."

"I shall not send my raiders, nor my Military. I shall destroy you singlehandedly, myself! Face my divine retribution, Autobots-in-Spirit, now and for the next thousand years!"

Somewhere in the nation's diplomatic headquarters, a gunshot was heard. Upon investigation, a low-ranking official was found dead - a suicide. No one would ever know his role in what was now happening outside.

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

Crack and Addams

The other bot took plenty of damage and didn't get a shot in edgewise at first, but soon realized that his opponent was always warping in behind him. He backed up to a building so that any more of that would make Pesticide end up either inside the building or stuck within its wall. Then he raised his blasters and waited for Pesticide to hesitate or make some other mistake.

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

Pesticide threw an Energon Cube at his foe, blasted it, turned on his camouflage a second later under the cover of the smoke, warped in close and grabbed at his foe whilst blasting at the same time, trying at close range to try and break through to something important-the mind boards, motion boards or the command cable, blasting the bot with lightning-lightning that was mainly defeated by the Faraday wrapping inside the bot, but that threatened anything whose wrapping was successfully blasted. He had a slight advantage in this close quarter battle due to the other bot having lost three fingers on one hand earlier, and the few seconds it would take the bot to adjust his eyes to see through Pesticide's camouflage, but it was still a risky thing, not often done by sensible bots. If the other bot managed to damage Pesticide's own Faraday Cage Pesticide risked frying himself to death, a painful and embarrassing way to die. It did give him the plus of speed though as the longer the fight lasted, the more chance the other bots might decide to rejoin the fight-which might be fatal for Pesticide who had no intention of dying if he could avoid it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Socialus
Megatron's wrath was fast and terrifying, and came in the epic style of the divine as written about in the holy books of foreign religions. The difference was that Megatron was attacking now, not thousands of years ago, and what the denizens of this planet were experiencing was definitely not a myth. The Divine Leader was living up to his new title in no uncertain terms.

Lightning bolts began to blast down into the most populated areas, coming from massive electrical Decepticon Seals that glowed in the darkened sky beforehand. The bolts decimated the urban populace, which had already come back out after the prior attack due to a misguided feeling of need to rush somewhere. Now, their souls rushed into captivity; when Megatron himself made a kill, he automatically got the soul.

Next, the ground began to quake. Skyscrapers came down like dominoes - Socialus usually didn't have quakes, so they hadn't built their structures to resist them. As this went on, a long-dormant volcano went off.

Finally, after the few "luckily" remaining holovision stations had a chance to broadcast what was going on - and more importantly, who was doing it and why - it was time for the finish. Megatron warped all of Socialus' air to Cybertron, and an equal amount of Cybertron's air to Socialus. The last thing most of the nation's people would experience while alive would be the smell of Decepticon exhaust.

Soon, all was silent. Now, Megatron warped over from the Supercomputer data center and appeared in the body-strewn capital of the nation that thrived just minutes before. He caused a pillar of rock to raise dramatically from the ground, and etched a message into the granite. The message warned that a Decepticon's wrath burned for 10,000 years, and then stated that the nation was destroyed for working with the Autobots 300 years prior. "There is no statute of limitations for enemies of the Decepticon Empire," Megatron's message concluded.

He then warped away, knowing that since this planet had several nations on it, someone from one of the others would quickly find the pillar. The broadcasts he had allowed would greatly hasten that. Megatron ordered the Military to be on the alert in case anyone got any ideas of making a retaliatory attack, but he really didn't expect one. Socialus had been that planet's most advanced nation - who would dare attack someone who could destroy it singlehandedly?

Later, on Socialus' planet, many nations would give empty, politicians' expressions of sorrow. One, however, would also tremble in silent fear, its Autobot-tech based holovision station personnel praying to their god that they would not be next.

Back on Cybertron, Megatron stopped by the Temple of Lost Souls and dumped 100 million new gems into its giant hopper. These, he knew, did not represent every person who had been in Socialus. A few had been missed by the disasters and had managed to don gas masks to avoid the Cybertronian air. Some had been in rural buildings with filtered air. A hiking group had been on a mountain above the level of the carbon monoxide. But Megatron wasn't worried about those. It was good to have a few powerless survivors, for they would spread the tale...and the fear of Megatron's retribution...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Crack and Addams

Pesticide's gambit was bold, and he got a few early strikes in on his target. His target, however, was an experienced gang member and ICC member as well. It wasn't long before he got over his surprise and reached out to grab Pesticide with his good hand, intending to blast him in the head with the weapon on his other arm.

Pesticide dodged this, and the two then engaged in a long series of moves that included plenty of wrestling, blasting, punching, and kicking. It was almost like a re-enactment of the Final Battle of the Great War, but the lack of a handy slag pit meant that there would be no glorious splashdown at the end.

Finally, the other bot began to lag. Pesticide didn't know why, and he didn't waste any time asking. He got a blast into his enemy's back and quickly followed it with a lightning blast. No actual wiring was fried, but an electrical connector that had been jostled out of its wrapping went up in smoke. In an instant,the connection between the bot's mind and motion boards was broken. With a growl of aggravation, he crashed to the ground.

Pesticide now had less than 5 seconds to finish off or permanently paralyze his adversary. If he took longer, the other bot would have time to transfer motion-processing to his mind-boards and possibly keep fighting. He would most likely end up lumbering instead, but in battle, the only safe enemy is a dead enemy...

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

The battle that followed Pesticide's bold gambit was truly epic even by Decepticon standards, both bots punching, kicking, blasting, and doing their best to destroy each other outright, their eyes a deep dark red of rage, their jammers on. Given that most spectators were safe and also understood Pesticide's act since he had nothing to lose, noone blasted. Had there been a smelting pit nearby, one of the battling bots would have ended up getting an unwanted white hot metal bath for sure. Finally Pesticide got a good shot in followed by a pony lightning blast, crippling his foe, before he placed his blaster where the mind boards would be and let loose a strong blast followed by lightning, slaying the IOPC bot outright. He turned his jammer off and said to the other bots "Go now, mind transfer. I won't bother you or your business if you leave me be." As they all had spares, they did so, and for several seconds the other bots clapped Pesticide as they respected his display of strength. Outnumbered four to one and seemingly doomed to die, he had killed one of his foes and forced the three others to mind transfer. Seeing a shop was selling amongst other things, metal rope, he called to the shopkeeper "If you come out with a coil of that rope I will buy it here and now. I can't come to you or my scrap bodies will get stolen."

The shopkeeper came and he paid a few Cubes for the rope, tied it around the four bodies and dragged them to the nearest foundry. Soon enough he took the Energon to a mech and used the 12,000 Cubes to fix the worst of the damage to his body-and to put layers of new armour over the damaged pieces. Although most of the new armour was scrap, he put on quite a bit of it, so it's sheer thickness would help keep blasts out of those areas. He knew that that to wear the official Genocider symbol of the Skull and Wrenches was probably treason and even if it was not, it would go down very negatively if a Genocider or General Carjack found out, so instead, on a thigh he put a decal of a boomerang with saw teeth. For those bots who knew about cutie marks, it was a subtle admitting of his pony origins, and also a warning not to mess with him. He also made his body seem a little more dangerous then it really was, and painted it in colours that looked threatening, with decals signifying the bots he had slain or vanquished. In real life, his body even fixed was about a third weaker then it was before, but he looked seriously dangerous. If he could make himself seem more dangerous then he was, like a toad puffing up or a cobra spreading it's hood, it might put other bots off tangling with him.

By the time he came back, the news had rippled around the IOPC crews in that particular area. Four bots had taken him on-one unless restored from a Save would be dead-the other three lost a body each. He took up his station, waiting for the next local crew to try and kill him. In winning this battle he had in effect advanced in rank so he was above the four bots he had defeated as well as Coin. Still, it was unlikely the other crews in this area would give up trying to kill him, as they didn't want him to end up possibly becoming a minor capo within the IOPC. Connect soon heard of course that his would be problem solver had defeated four more IOPC bots all by himself. Pesticide wondered what would happen next? Anoither gang trying to kill him? An assassin bot sent after him? Perhaps a sly way of trying to kill him, or another former pony, now a bot who could also use lightning being sent after him. Or maybe he might get a job given to him.

Military Base

Loyal Star remembered Hearthswarming, but pushed the memory away. He was a Megatronist Priest now, and no longer celebrated it, but when Christmas came, he intended to celebrate that as it was legal to do so as long as it was in a secular fashion.

Socialus

The people on that planet were terrified and many would later convert to Megatronism out of fear as much as anything else.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack and Addams

By now, rumors of Pesticide's wins had spread through the local members of the ICC, and they caused a few groups to outright dump their plans of challenging him. Others, however, were intrigued and even motivated to try their hands. Could this newcomer really be that tough? Usually, those looking to join got deactivated rather quickly, forcing them to accept low-level positions doing things like carrying cargo. This one, however, was already above that lowly stage and would have to be assigned positions in the fighting formation if he went on a raid. Few knew that he wasn't looking to be a raider or drug runner.

As Pesticide leaned on a building looking tough, most of the pedestrians gave him a wide berth. Only those without ICC insignia - people who happened to live in the town, but who wouldn't know of the rumors - walked by as if he was just another troublemaker. Some of these secretly readied their blasters in case he tried to mug them, but weren't interested in starting anything first.

Eventually, in the mid-afternoon, an unassuming-looking bot with a few obvious modifications and upgrades strolled up with a bit too much purpose to just be looking for a friendly chat. His body had its usual coats of wax, but the shine was dulled with what seemed to be a thin layer of grease, some dust, and a notable amount of used oil on one foot. It was clear that none of it came from his own body, but instead, was a by-product of whatever he'd been doing before he decided to come to the area of the speakeasy.

"So. I hear you're quite a fighter." He said to Pesticide. "And, I can see that you took quite a bit of damage from that last battle." He stared at the areas that had been covered in layers of scrap metal. "That might work against some brute-force Meltdowns, but someone who knows how to dismantle it could easily turn you into used parts." The tone of voice was confident, and somehow, conveyed a definite intention.

With that, Pesticide knew who his next challenger would be.

"I'm the mechanic from the shop 2 streets over. Call me JerryRigger, or Rigger for short." The soon-to-be opponent introduced himself. "And my shop can always use more used parts." He backed up two paces and assumed a battle stance. "If you care to yield and leave, I will allow you to...but since you have chosen to stand here looking for a fight, I presume you would like to test what is left of your Metal one more time..."

Rigger was not the usual tough-area opponent. As a mechanic, he could understand the dynamics of all of Pesticide's visible repairs - and he knew how to hit most of them in ways that would quickly render them useless. He had already spotted one area that had several layers of metal, but only one weld line on each side of the square holding them all together. Simply heating that spot until the welds melted would un-repair it quite handily.

"QuickWork's work," Rigger couldn't help but snort. "If you know what's good for you, you'll concede now. Otherwise I will have to show you why you should have boycotted that idiot's 'establishment.'"

As he talked, he internally mapped out which parts he would try to un-fix first.

Pesticide stood up tall, indeed ready for the challenge. He detected that despite his name, JerryRigger had non-Jerrr-rigged parts of his own - but they were not covered in the Faraday sheathing that the prior gang had used. He did, of course, have the usual internal Faraday cage common to Decepticon body manufacture, but that wasn't nearly as challenging as having to cut through one for every single wire.

As soon as Pesticide assumed his own battle stance, indicating the desire to fight, he found that JerryRigger had some sort of reaction time accelerator. A blast hit him right in a patch on his left shoulder, quickly melting the weld and causing the patch to fall off. Instantly, Rigger re-aimed with the intention of blasting the shoulder joint the patch had protected, and disabling that arm.

Soon, a crowd formed a wide circle around the combatants. Everyone knew that Rigger was one of the best for precise dismantling of less-than-perfect bodies. He had once been part of the IOPC, which had trained him in "advanced" ways of being a mob enforcer. Now that the IOPC was no longer a strong, unified presence, he lent those skills to the ICC in exchange for goodly amounts of Energon. Those skills, it turned out, involved dismantling his assigned targets alive piece by piece. Almost everyone decided to pay their debts to the ICC before he made it far enough to kill them.

This time, he wasn't getting paid to dismantle his target. He had decided to do it for the sake of the challenge and for the increase in status that success would bring.

At the edge of the crowd, a recognizable body appeared. It was Connect. His view from the restaurant had been blocked by the circle of onlookers, forcing him to come out and blatantly watch. Usually, he watched JerryRigger do his work with a sort of sadistic satisfaction, but now, he was ambivalent about who to root for. He knew that if Pesticide was able to beat this master dismantler, it would be time to stop the fights and give him a position. But he also knew that in Rigger's current streak, he had taken apart over 150 highly-resistant bots, alive, without a failure...

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

Staging Area

Loyal Star was about to put up some Santas and lights at his house when he was quickly approached by a MilIntel bot. Soon, he realized one of the downsides of being an official Priest of Megatron. Christmas, he was told, would be seen as a religious, foreign holiday even if celebrated in purely secular ways. This was fine for the general population, who would be seen as doing it mainly for fun, but not for an official representative of Megatronism.

As a Priest, he could not allow ANY appearance of supporting anything from a religion other than Megatronism or a culture other than that of the Decepticons. He had to be, or at least appear to be, completely pure from a religious and ideological standpoint, and that meant eschewing all influences of all "competing" cultures and worldviews. Only the most trivial things would be exceptions - certainly not giant holidays like Christmas.

The bottom line was that all of the decorations had to come down, and Loyal Star could not play any Christmas music out loud either. He would have to play it internally (which, thanks to being a robot, could be done in a way that still was like listening to it instead of just imagining it).

Because he was a Megatronist Priest, Loyal Star could only openly celebrate Megatronist holidays or ones that had no religious or even foreign roots. It might have been possible to do so if he got leave and went to some other world, but he was not on leave. His duties were in full force, so this year, he would not be having his intended fun...

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

There may have been disappointment on a far-off world, but there was none in one part of the Metal Planet itself. The Cybertronian Business Association's Christmas party was in full swing, with localized versions of carols blaring out of the speakers at SolarTempest's mansion. "I'm Dreaming of an Oily Christmas," "The 12 Ways of Raiding," and "Diversion Wonderland" were all on repeat, with the latter song referring to the practice of hacking into credit card exchanges during the season and redirecting the vast amounts of authorized charge money to their own accounts.

The CBA had done very well this year. Not only had it raided pretty much everything within profitable flight distance that wasn't overly guarded, it had begun to expand its methods. The credit card funding diversion in the song was just one of its new tactics, and it worked well since they were on Cybertron and their targets weren't. Even when detected, their MT targets could only freeze the local accounts that were being used for the fraud - as for arrests, foreign law enforcement at this technology level couldn't even figure out where the hacking had come from, let alone try to bother the CBA about it.

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

When the stories went about that Pesticide had come out victorious went about the area, at least a couple of the local crews suddenly decided not to challenge him, fearing that they might lose their best bodies or even their lives. Others most certainly wanted to defeat him and prove their own strength in the process. Whilst brute strength was not everything in the Empire as a strong bot with not enough RAM could be conned or even outright defeated by a clever bot, it was very important and was what authority from Leader Megatron on down was based on. Pesticide didn't know it yet but if he survived he had earned a place in the fighting formation of an ICC raid already. It was still very much an "If" however. Many average bots gave Pesticide a wide berth, not wanting a huge fight for no reason, and for his part, he was saving himself for the real challenges to come. He knew he might die trying to prove himself; but he also knew he would not be hell bound. He had done and said nothing that was worthy of the Realm of Punishment, and he was confident that his soul would not be handed over to the demons of Pony Hell, as Decepticons even in the afterlife never extradited anybody-and if any pony demons somehow showed up, he would not be alone in blasting them. He didn't want to die-but if he had to, he would. Suddenly a new challenger strode up.

The bot was slightly dirty, but looked confident and strong. "So. I hear you're quite a fighter. And, I can see that you took quite a bit of damage from that last battle. That might work against some brute-force Meltdowns, but someone who knows how to dismantle it could easily turn you into used parts. I'm the mechanic from the shop 2 streets over. Call me JerryRigger, or Rigger for short. And my shop can always use more used parts." As JerryRigger prepared to fight Pesticide was doing the same thing, turning down pain signals to 20% and preparing to blast. "If you care to yield and leave, I will allow you to...but since you have chosen to stand here looking for a fight, I presume you would like to test what is left of your Metal one more time..." JerryRigger was not very impressed with what he saw, and could see various weak spots that could soon be reopened. "QuickWork's work. f you know what's good for you, you'll concede now. Otherwise I will have to show you why you should have boycotted that idiot's 'establishment.'"

Pesticide found out that at least his foe was not as fully protected against lightning as the last four. The battle began and at once Pesticide took damage. Knowing in a normal battle he would take damage far more quickly then his foe he decided to teleport so close to his foe that if he timed it right the two would crash into each other. He would follow it up with everything he could; close range blasts, punches, kicks, head-butts, and of course large amounts of pony lightning. As long as his foe's Faraday cage was intact, only light scorching would happen from the lightning, but if he could create a hole in it-lightning would fry the relatively delicate circuits inside and kill his foe in an instant. A second later he teleported. Just in time he realised that if he just randomly shot lightning off he could very easily fry himself, so decided to control it through a finger-and only when the time was right. A short sharp shock could be controlled- but with a long blast the chance of frying himself rose dramatically.

So many bots, ICC and otherwise, were watching the fight that Connect had to walk up himself for a clear view. Surely Pesticide could not win this fight-but if he did, he had proved himself worthy of a position in the ICC.

Staging Area

Loyal Star was preparing to celebrate Christmas when a bot approached and flashed a certain symbol-the symbol of Milintel. Although Domintel and Milintel normally worked undercover, there were times when they did need to identify themselves as Domintel or Milintel and this was one of these times. As a Priest of Megatron, and one who was also very much on duty to boot, celebrating Christmas was just as forbidden as celebrating Hearthswarming was. The planned decorating would have to stop. If he had been off duty, it would be a grey area, and grey areas were generally legal unless Megatron had ruled otherwise. The open playing of Christmas music (Loyal Star at the time was playing "Merry Xmas Everybody") would also need to stop. With a polite bow, Loyal Star did what he was told but he did internally play Christmas music in one ear. He did internally look at when the next Megatronist celebration was due-then he certainly would celebrate it unless in battle, and if Milintel wanted to stop him then ,he would appeal to Megatron. He didn't mind too much-it was part of his religious duties and anyway, when he was a Ponyist priest he had not been allowed to celebrate Christmas either as neither his family or his bishop had approved.

Cybertron

Noone was trying to interfere with the Christmas Party of the CBA and local carols such as "The 12 Ways of Raiding" were being enjoyed, whilst the former humans had brought teeth and food modules and had things like Christmas pudding to eat. SolarTempest was very pleased with himself. His irritating Coder was dead, his gang was on it's way to becoming a syndicate, and he was a rich bot. Lightning Dust, the former Miltorg, walked up, bowed, and offered him one of the latest blasters. "I'd like to sell you this for one Cube." The blaster was worth several thousand Cubes and this was a de facto Christmas gift. As it was Christmas it was pretty clear that this was not some sort of connive.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack and Addams
Pesticide was getting nowhere fast with his brute force attacks this time. It seemed as if JerryRigger's body had a thick layer of shock absorbent material as one of its types of armor.He would have to come up with something less animalistic than head butting, that was for sure!

To make matters worse, Pesticide got a nasty surprise. When he came in close to make one of his attacks, he saw what appeared to be a duct-taped set of chopsticks - the first obviously jerry-rigged part he'd seen on his opponent - come out of Rigger's hand. In an instant, he felt some vibrations before Rigger punched him away. As Pesticide prepared to attack again, he felt some wind in a weakened area.

"This stuff has no business being sold as a patch." Rigger snorted, holding up the layers of armor he'd just snipped off with his makeshift vibra-cutters. "QuickWork really ought to just ~!"

He didn't have a chance to finish his sentence. Pesticide realized that to do that, JerryRigger would have had to put a lot of sensors into his cutting device. He took aim, not at the vitals, but at his opponent's hand. As expected, the delicate tool within was severely damaged -and painful enough that Rigger had to pause for a fraction of a second to turn the signal off.

This would be a chance for Pesticide to lock in several good blasts, but only if he fired from a distance. JerryRigger likely had many more melee weapons just waiting to give Pesticide the chop shop treatment if he could make direct contact.

Cybertron

SolarTempest paid the Cube, said thanks, and quickly installed the blaster. The party soon moved out back to the range, where he tested the weapon on some 2D metal targets. It performed admirably, and became part of the gang leader's personal arsenal.

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

Pesticide was not doing well this time but he got a lucky break when he damaged one of his foe's more sensitive tools and got a few blasts in. He realised that these delicate tools, if damaged, were his foe's weakness. Hurting them caused his opponent pain even though pain would normally be turned down in battle. He wondered to himself if he was going to die this day trying to prove his worth. His foe next produced what looked like some sort of wand with whirling blades on each end and did more damage before he managed to blast it and get a shot or two in on his foe.

Cybertron

Not just SolarTempest but several bots would end up giving and getting gifts that day. Far from Cybertron , on duty, Loyal Star would have to go without any public Christmas celebrations to avoid getting in trouble but covertly played some Christmas music to himself in one ear, leaving the other one free for other things.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Crack and Addams

As the two continued to go at it, it became clear that they were fairly equal in skills. Both became heavily damaged, and engines that once ran smoothly now roared not with rage or vigor, but as a result of their barely-functional statuses. Still, neither would even consider concession. Only one body would be leaving that street in any sort of functional state - if, that is, some Scroungers didn't show up to give the winner a free trip to a foundry as a prize.

JerryRigger had tried many melee weapons, and even though he finally turned his pain sensors down, Pesticide managed to get at least one blast in after damaging each of them. Though no one had suspected it, some of Rigger's Code was also jerry-rigged, and the kludge he had come up with had accidentally run the fine touch sense in with the subroutine for sensing pain. This meant that if he turned his pain response down too much, his attached tools couldn't be effectively used. There was a reason Debugging sold professionally-done upgrade patches, and mistakes like this were it. Someone like Rigger, however, wasn't interested in hiring the work done "like a common idiot." In some cases, this mindset led to superior results. In others, it would give the enemy just enough of an edge to win.

Pesticide realized that JerryRigger seemed reluctant to use his equipment without his sensors on, and at first, he thought the same might apply to his foe's entire body. This turned out to be wrong, but testing the idea did sear a gash across Riggers' lower abdomen. Pesticide began to blast the same spot whenever he could, using his Immigration-issued weaponry, in hopes of cutting through the armor protecting the fuel tank and either blowing his opponent to bits or at least costing him his fuel and forcing him into shutdown.

Now, the two began to put distance between each other to switch to a battle of ranged weaponry. Pesticide didn't want to risk any more dismantlement, and JerryRigger didn't want to either lose any more of his tools nor feel it happening. As they maneuvered, both took plenty of fire, and smoke emanated from various points in both bodies.

Eventually, Pesticide entered a sort of trance state where his entire consciousness was focused on defeating this enemy. He blasted over and over, constantly re-aiming to maintain his one target, and ignored the incoming fire. Meanwhile, JerryRigger kept trying to dodge and blast at the same time, which spared him a bit of damage but slowed his firing rate. This would prove to be his downfall.

Suddenly, a loud explosion rang out. JerryRigger got an outraged, yet shocked, look on his face. For a few instants, he kept blasting away, hoping to at least succeed at causing mutual destruction. Alas, it was not to be. While Pesticide still had about 3/4-inch of armor on his body, JerryRigger's own body ran out of the fuel left in its lines, and he was forcibly switched to battery power. In his fury, he tried to let off one more blast, and this drained his battery in an instant. With a clang, he keeled forward at the angle he'd been leaning, and the battle was over.

~~~~~~~~

"Pretty darned good!" A voice called from the crowd, and most of the people cheered the victor after having witnessed such a tooth-and-nail battle. The one who had yelled the compliment, however, had other plans. Pesticide saw, to what was now his exhausted horror, that this person was strutting forth like a puffed-up rooster: He wanted to fight next, figuring that it would be an easy mop-up by this point. Pesticide, after all, was only in slightly better shape than JerryRigger, who was now laying on the ground with his Energon tank blown up.

"ENOUGH!" The command carried through the crowd with ease, and immediately, everyone stepped aside including the would-be new challenger. Connect soon appeared from amongst the onlookers. "Pesticide, your position has been earned and your rank is set." He turned to what appeared to be bodyguards or other flunkies, and ordered them to take JerryRigger back to his shop and then patch up his body enough to get it running for a few moments. "He should have a spare there - he can transfer to it once you get him back online."

"Welcome to the Interplanetary Commerce Commission. You will now be escorted to one of our arsenals. You will receive further instructions there. Once you're done there, meet me at headquarters." He leaned in and whispered an address far from their current location. Connect may have liked to hang out here, but for the type of business Pesticide had been looking to enter, much more secrecy was required. Assassinations, after all, were harder to do when the plan was overheard and gossiped about by half of the people in a restaurant.

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

"Arsenal"

Connect's bodyguards walked Pesticide through the streets and down some seedy alleys before finally reaching what looked like a solid wall. Soon enough, a password had been tapped onto the wall's surface in Binary, and it slid back to reveal a fairly large area. Inside, heavily-armed guards and some unassuming looking bots were waiting. The group walked inside and the door silently slid closed behind them.

To Pesticide's surprise, this wasn't actually an armory at all, though it did have a small selection of mil-spec blasters. Instead, it was a very well-equipped repair shop with parts for all of the off-the-shelf bodies worthy of consideration. A mechanic immediately came over to him.

"We take care of our members, including the new ones who have just gone through the initial entry process. After all, we can't have you win a bunch of fights only to be picked off by some lousy Scroungers before you can even get home to fix yourself! Just hop up onto the workbench and lay back, and we'll have that body back up to spec in no time. Well, actually, above spec. You're ICC now, so you get a set of mil-spec blasters."

The mechanic went on: "Of course, we strongly recommend that you upgrade further before you go on an assignment. People hire problem solvers to deal with problems they can't handle on their own, you know. And a body straight out of immigration isn't going to solve that kind of a problem. But once you're repaired, you'll be able to fend off random ruffians as well as when you first arrived."

In only a few hours, which was a long time for repairs compared to the average, Pesticide's body was indeed completely fixed. It now had a new engine, several new support struts, new springs and shock absorbers for his hips, and all-new armor layers and cosmetic panels complete with paint.

Now, it was time for him to thank everyone and find the address Connect had whispered to him. His internal map from Debugging showed a street that was not in some little town or grungy warehouse district, but instead, smack in the downtown of Decepticon Headquarters itself. This meant that it was almost surely a huge skyscraper. It was, however, highly unlikely that the place would have "ICC" plastered on it. Instead, it made sense to look for something that seemed totally unrelated...

[Vallermoore]

Crack and Addams

Pesticide, with only one body, concentrated fully on vanquishing his foe and both bots did great damage to each other, but ultimately Pesticide's single mindedness was what won the battle. Above the cheers, another bot came forward to fight, but was stopped in his tracks by a very well known voice. "ENOUGH!" Connect strode up, the other bots getting well out of his way. No bot here wanted to get on Connect's bad side. "Pesticide, your position has been earned and your rank is set." Pesticide managed a smile and as big a bow has his badly damaged body could give. He had proven himself in the fighting arts of the Decepticon Way. Connect gave orders to have JerryRigger taken to his spare and restarted, whilst Pesticide was to be taken to an arsenal and fixed so he could be of use. After all, he had got his wounds proving himself for the ICC.

Arsenal

Pesticide was given short term bodyguards on the way there as he was so damaged he could not defend himself properly until fixed. A few Scroungers saw him but knew better then to fight ICC bots. Soon enough he was being fixed and soon enough he had a new engine, new support struts and several other new parts. He decided to keep his metal "cutie mark". It might make those bots who knew about cutie marks either underestimate him in battle, or know he was not a bot to be targeted with impunity. The mechanic was pleased to see him and said that the ICC looked after it's own, more so as he got those wounds proving himself. Soon enough he thanked the mechanic and flew to the place arranged for him, a hotel, the only genuine one on Cybertron. It had once been set up by the IOPC as a trap, but was worth more as a genuine hotel then as a trap. When Masher disgraced himself, the ICC took it over. Soon enough Pesticide would get his first problem to solve. Either he would solve it, he decided, or he would die in the attempt. He wanted to prove his use to the ICC.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Hotel

As Pesticide made a perfect landing in front of the Decepticon-sized part of the hotel, a group of humans in the small area all turned to watch. They gaped with awe, and soon got out their cameras and started taking pictures and videos. A few other humans, as well as a couple of strange slithery aliens, also noticed him and stopped to stare. They had all seen Decepticons in the air and on the ground, but this was the first time they'd seen an actual transformation in person. Any doubts that they might have had about the Decepticons being Transformers were erased.

While Pesticide would have loved to stay outside and soak up some adoration and publicity, he made sure to stick to business for now. He gave the biologicals a wave, and then entered the large part of the building through a set of giant sliding doors. Even this impressed the tourists, and some tried to follow along in order to keep gawking. The massive strides of the full-sized Decepticon, however, were so big that the tiny creatures couldn't keep up even at a run. Soon, the tinted doors slid closed, leaving them on the outside. Even the entire group of them wasn't heavy enough to trigger the automatic opening. Eventually, a hotel worker came and shooed them, warning that if someone came out of the big door, they would all get stepped on and killed before the Decepticon pedestrian realized anyone was down there.

~~~~~~~~~~

Inside, Pesticide took in the classy surroundings, which made use of plenty of subdued gold tones. Dark blue accents provided just enough of a contrast to keep things looking good instead of gaudy.

A concierge soon approached, and in a quiet and classy way, informed Pesticide that his "business associate" was on the second floor in Suite 250. He indicated an elevator, and asked if Pesticide would like to have anything sent up after him. "Energon, hot oil, hot wax?" Pesticide accepted Energon, figuring that oiling or waxing himself would be far too casual and unprofessional for the occasion, and went into the elevator.

As a pony, he wouldn't have been able to even imagine an elevator capable of lifting heavy beings the size of 10-story buildings, but here one was. It silently moved upwards as if it was empty, and the doors slid open with a whisper when it got to the next floor. During the ride, Pesticide noticed that what seemed like filigree near the ceiling of the lift was actually "ICC" written over and over again in calligraphic Binary. Someone who didn't have the ICC already in mind might have missed it.

Once at the right floor, Pesticide stepped out and into a wider area with dark blue carpet accentuated with cream-colored stripes. Around a corner, there was a hallway that had the same theme, but with wider, wavy stripes and medallions with the hotel's logo. The walls were a creamy gold with a subdued abstract pattern just a few shades different from the background.

When he arrived at the proper suite, he knocked on the door. It soon opened, but instead of seeing Connect, Pesticide found himself face-to-face with a huge burly guy who had about 10 strong-looking blaster barrels sticking out of each side of the front of his chest, as well as a fusion cannon on one arm and an acid shooter on the other. His eyes glowered as if he was ready to fire everything off at once.

"State your business." He ordered bluntly.

Pesticide stammered out what he was doing there, and from within the suite, a grunt of acceptance was heard. The giant, murderous bodyguard stepped back once and then moved sideways once, using a very regimented way of doing so, and the way was cleared. Pesticide cautiously entered the suite, which was extremely fancy and penthouse-like, and found Connect sitting near one of the windows.

Connect drew the curtains closed and motioned for his guard to close the door. Once they were in private, it was time to talk "business."

"As you may know," Connect said, "syndicates like ours do a lot of kinds of business. One of the biggest branches of our operations is the drug trade. And as you surely know, in any trade, it's best to have a monopoly." There was no accent on this mob boss, and he didn't have the freewheeling persona that Masher did. Instead - at least right now - he was deadly serious.

"Instead of sending you on a random mission that we were hired for, I want you to solve one of our own problems as your first job. That problem is our lack of a drug monopoly on one of our planets of operation. Planet Vandu has competition, and that competition has infiltrated half of the nations on it. It has also bought off the major law enforcement agencies, so they only interfere with OUR business and not the other guy's. This has led to unfortunate encounters with the lackeys of these agencies. Of course, we didn't get the most-unfortunate results, but exterminating police and federal investigators brings unwanted further legal attention to the Commission and its operations. All of this has to be stopped."

Pesticide nodded with each point, making sure to understand them all and get an overall picture of the situation.

Connect continued speaking: "There are two important humans at the head of this competing group. One is the Don, as you might expect. Don Quiglione, to be exact. He needs to go. Just as importantly, his Chief Strategist needs to go, too. The Strategist is the one who has been masterminding their competitive efforts against us. Just killing him, however, is not enough. Quiglione is very good at choosing underlings, and he would get another who was just as good as his current one. So you need to kill both of them."

"So far, the big problem is that Quiglione is always surrounded by several machine-gun-toting bodyguards. He and they also wear body armor. This makes it so that using a drive-by shooting as a cover has, so far, been impossible. Our human dealers on Vandu would be killed before they got more than a couple of shots off. We also want to hide obvious Decepticon involvement so as not to get the local law enforcement too interested in this gang war, so we don't want to just land on their heads and flatten them."

"YOU, however, can use an android body to do a drive-by on him. When they shoot back, the bullets will just bounce off of you. Everyone who sees the event will assume that the bodyguards missed you or that you were sufficiently armored to survive - but they'll think that armor is something along the lines of Kevlar, not built-on Decepticon Steel. Of course, you'll be using a special machine gun, complete with Decepticon-grade armor-piercing bullets, to do this hit. Quiglione will be a goner, and the true nature of our operations will remain a secret."

Connect looked just slightly smug as he outlined this part of the plan.

"The harder part will be to take out the Chief Strategist. His problem isn't who will see or what they'll assume. Instead, it's the fact that he doesn't come out of his fortified bunker. He is not only a turbogeek, he is very paranoid - and rightfully so. His bunker can resist a medium-sized nuclear bomb, bunker-busting missiles, and more-ordinary things such as jackhammers. It has over 200 air vents, all filtered, and all hidden. There are several escape tunnels, but the concrete-and-steel doors that block them only open outwards. Worse yet, all of this information is just what we've gotten by bribing low-ranking members of the Quiglione Family, so it could be partially or completely wrong. The actual location of the bunker is unknown - and so is what kind of defenses you'll face if you manage to breach it."

"I'm hoping that as a former biological, you'll recognize some signs of life that my other problem-solvers have missed. Oh, and try to be subtle with this one, too, though you'll probably need to use our kind of firepower to get through that kind of a setup. If you do use energy blasts, try to disguise the damage as an electrical fire or something like that after you win. We don't want any solid evidence that it was a Decepticon operation."

Now, Connect produced a map from his arm panel. On it, he drew an oval around a certain part of a town. "This is the area where Quiglione is known to go. He likes to go to cafes to talk business, and will usually be at one of the ones in this strip. You can find him just by cruising the road here and looking for that bodyguard contingent. Just make sure he's actually in the group before you open fire. Sometimes he sends them by themselves just to flush out problem solvers like you."

Next, he showed a larger map of all of the Quiglione Family's range, which spanned several nations on the other planet. "The Chief Strategist, whose name has never been discovered, is...somewhere. He's most likely in the Family's area of operations, and most likely in a forest. But he might not be there at all. Your first job will be to find this guy, and then solve the problem he presents. I'm hoping that the extermination of your first target will get him to come out to try to take over the Family, but he might not even bother. You'll most likely need to bribe, extort, or even torture the information out of someone. Speaking of torture, here."

Connect tossed a high-capacity chip across the table to Pesticide. "Read all of that before you go. Then destroy it completely. It must never be known what was on that, where you got it, or where I might have gotten it."

"One last thing: The pay for this is 100,000 Cubes for Quiglione, and 1,000,000 Cubes for the 'boards behind the operation' - the Strategist."

~~~~~~~~~~

On the Earth-like Vandu, things were not going well for the ICC. It had been distributing its product through a network of human mules and dealers, and the Quigliones had begun taking them out of commission using plain street warfare as well as more mob-like methods such as burying them in the foundations of new buildings. Some large distributors had been hanged from bridges or even burned alive, which, needless to say, was ruining morale. Connect figured that the Quiglione Family would lose its ability to carry out a cohesive strategy if its strategist and leader were both taken out, and this was probably right. The one most likely to ascend to the Donship preferred the use of bribes to ostentatious gore, and this would not work on the ICC adjuncts, who would just take the money but not actually turn traitor in exchange. ICC adjunct morale would soon rise, and then it would be time for them to seek deadly revenge on the rest of the competing gang.

But first, Pesticide needed to knock off the two men who were currently at the head of the planet's local mafia.