An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

Afterlife

Megatron watched as Chemist was led away, and then stayed in the room for a while to ponder his new acquisition. Butler actually seemed relieved that he hadn't gotten to Cybertron after learning that it was even more lawless than Coltan. It seemed that he was almost happy to be a slave as long as he had a Cube of Energon, a roof over his head...and safety.

This idea made Megatron's lip unconsciously curl in a combination of disgust and horror. How could someone prefer that?! To him, there was nothing worth giving up one's freedom to act with violence when it was called for. He reveled in how when someone tried to rob the Megatron Mansion, that someone ended up falling from the sky in little bits - often thanks to him and his fusion cannon. "Someone like that has no chance of ever being anything," Megatron muttered, knowing how high positions always came with a few assassination attempts. Even the old presidents and prime ministers of Earth sometimes had to duck because someone decided that shooting them was a good idea, and their secret services stopped many others with the same notions. It was surely true that anyone who did anything remarkable ended up having someone else try to kill them for it.

"Peasant," he muttered as he got ready to re-open the portal. "Well, it seems he has finally found his perfect position."

Suddenly, a human appeared a bit above the ground and landed with a thud. A rope mark around his neck faded out almost immediately, and he began to gasp. Without looking up, he finally got to his knees and then used what he thought was a thick support pillar to get to his feet, still bending over and gasping.

"AHEM!" Megatron grumbled, making a perfect imitation of a human clearing his throat on purpose. The actual human looked up...and up, and up, until he saw Megatron's head far above him. That's when he realized he'd been leaning on Megatron's ankle.

"My Divine Leader! Oh wow!" He exclaimed. Megatron asked him what happened, and after recovering from his shock, he explained that he'd been a fanatical Megatronist. He had been secretly capturing and killing Ponyists and dedicating their souls to Megatron. One day, a remnant of equally-fanatical Ponyists, made up of both ponies and humans, caught up to him. When they did, they beat him nearly to death with their hooves and fists, and to make sure he was dead, strung him up from a tall tree.

"I remembered that the Book of Megatron said that you actually use the souls of opposing entities to power your wonderful and heavenly world, so I sent you one every chance I could. I killed them in all sorts of ways. Poison, stabbing, slicing them from stem to stern and showing them their still-beating hearts...every one was a pleasure, my Divine Leader, and I'd do it all again for you."

Megatron was immediately pleased at the scenes he envisioned - and because this solved the mystery of the souls that had kept arriving for use at the Temple of Lost Souls. He didn't admit that the human had been striking so fast, and so unpredictably, that Megatron hadn't been able to quite pin down the origin of these gifts. Now that he had something to go on, he used his divine power to look in on what had been the human's house. There, in its attic, was an altar with a Decepticon Seal flag behind it. On it, there was a display of about 10 tanned and stretched cutie marks, all of which showed some kind of Ponyist image. The only thing that was slightly lame was the icon of Megatron itself, which was clearly a toy instead of a proper idol. Still, the human had died while weakening a competing religion in a very direct way, so he decided to overlook that.

"How did you find out about me?" Megatron asked, after detecting that the human wasn't from Vallermoore. Instead, he came all the way from a planet a good 100 lightyears further out.

"I found out about you from my supplier," he said. "I'm in The Lightning Bolt. It's a big drug cartel on planet Inzra. He told me that you were the god of thieves, fraudsters, killers, and gangsters, and gave me a copy of the Book of Megatron. You're really big in the Bolt. Everyone who worships you suddenly does better against the cops and other scum. *I* ended up doing so much better that I figured I should repay you, so I sent all the souls I could. Your Book said that it's always best to try to weaken an enemy as well as enrich yourself, so I chose Ponyists as my targets. I don't know how those Ponyists can even stay Ponyists. Their gods were all destroyed by you, and thanks to us, everyone knows it."

The human went on to explain that the religion started when two very successful smugglers came to his area with drug types that were extremely addictive and that couldn't be obtained from anyone else. They soon put out the word that they needed retail-level dealers, and formed The Lightning Bolt as a new gang. As its successes became legendary in the underworld, other gangsters joined up. Now, it had powerful sub-gangs across an entire continent and complete control over the drug trade in a large nation. Megatronism spread to cartels in other nations from there, and became very popular with the entire addictive-drug industry There was just one drawback to this, and that was that Megatronism was now firmly associated with the planet's cartels and all of the brutality that went with them, which made its popularity among law-abiding people almost nil.

Next, Megatron asked how Megatronism was being practiced. He found that the version this human knew was different from the official one in a few ways, the biggest one being that he was thought of as having a specialty in the criminal arts rather than as an all-around god. Some followers on Inzra also thought he was a spirit-only god rather than physical.

"I'll have to rectify that," Megatron noted. Megatron waved his hand, and the portal to the Realm of Punishment appeared. The human looked shocked and terrified - he must have done something wrong!

"Don't worry. You will not be punished there. The Realm of Punishment is for the condemned to be punished, but someone needs to do that punishing. Your eagerness to not only kill infidels, but do so in brutal ways, lets me know that you would be a good member of the Punishment Corps. I'm sure you'll enjoy this work." Megatron detailed some of the horrific punishments that condemned souls were already experiencing, and how sapient Punishers are involved in meting them out.

"Before you go, let me confirm that yes, you would have been doing better as soon as you swore allegiance to me. I automatically bless all of my followers, even the ones I am not consciously aware of. If there is a big gap between the power of this blessing and whatever your opposition has, you'll become very powerful quickly; but if the opposition has equal power from some other source, it isn't too obvious. Since it seems that your opposition was very literally godless Ponyists, it's no wonder that the Lightning Bolt now runs basically unopposed wherever those are the only competition. The only thing stopping their expansion, ironically, is the spread of my religion - when they run up against a foreign cartel, they're now encountering people with equal blessings, and those blessings are also from me. This means they once again have to fight in the normal way to spread further. Now, I will wish you well, and send you on to punish the souls of the damned."

A flaming Decepticon, with actual flames coming from his body, appeared through the portal. He took the human spirit in his hand and walked back through. The spirit did not burn despite the flames; they were mystically tuned to be no danger to loyal Megatronists.

Megatron quickly warped away and appeared back at his Earthian villa before anyone else could show up in the waiting area. Once he arrived, his Processor ran at full speed as he looked at internal space maps until he found it: Inzra. A planet twice the size of Earth, but with an Earth-like terrain and atmosphere. He got out his communicator and sent a message to Cybertron while looking around and admiring how well Butler had cleared the thin layer of dust from everything. Dust was an ongoing problem at any Earthian location, and though humans rarely noticed it at this level, it was quite obvious to someone who was used to living on a planet that had no soil at all.

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

Cybertron

Silver Blaze immediately began his sales spiel. He explained that the 2,000-Cube range was a good pick in general, but what would be gotten for that would depend on location. A house close to the heart of Decepticon Headquarters would be small thanks to a high demand to be near its many different corporate headquarters, one in the suburbs would be larger and nicer, and one further out would be very big but not close to much of interest.

Meanwhile, in the offices of the cathedral-sized Grand Temple of Megatron, a message was coming in. The Temple was to prepare 25 missionaries and send them out to Inzra, where they were to spread the true version of Megatronism. These were to arrive in a couple of months - enough time for Foreign Intelligence to first learn the culture and teach the Temple how to best approach the missions. Then, once that was straightened out, Megatron himself would go to Inzra to show that he was a physical being and to found a new Temple location there. This temple would be in the very heart of Lightning Bolt territory and could be dangerous for the Priest who would be assigned to it.

Next, Megatron made plans for an award ceremony. The smugglers who had spread his religion would surely use their drug money to buy oil and then bring it to Cybertron for conversion to Energon. This would happen on the regular thanks to the massive success of their drug cartel on Inzra. When they came next, they would be given a Cube of Private Reserve each, along with the privilege of wearing a special stripe that showed that they'd been recognized for their exemplary service to Megatronism and the Decepticon Way.

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

Decepticon Military Main Base

Plenty of activity was taking place at this location. Soon, the exit ceremony for the first-term conscripts would be taking place. This ceremony would be short and sweet - 20 minutes, tops - because everyone knew that most conscripts just wanted to get out and have fun when their terms ended. Still, it was a major milestone in a Decepticon's life, and it had been decided that it should be commemorated with a quick goodbye-and-thanks speech. Coders and friends could be invited to the event, which would happen in one week's time.

[Vallermoore]

Afterlife

The human flinched at the flames, until he found they were harmless to him. He would turn out to be as effective a Punisher as any Decepticon, his victims now in human form, for the souls of traitors were stripped of their mighty Decepticon bodies. It might have been a true Hell to those who were tortured there, but it was in it's own way, a heaven to this fanatical human Megatronist. When Megatron returned to the land of the living, Butler had done such a good job that he gave him a short time off to play a Coltani video game before his next task.

Megatron's Villa, Earth

Megatron realized that these far away Megatronists of Inzra were accidental heretics. They were not heretical on purpose; it was just that whilst they thought they knew all about Megatronism, they had no Priests, not a single one to let them know what the true faith really was. That would need to be rectified in time. Apart from that, they were most certainly doing well. The Lightning Bolt may have been a biological gang, but it was a very successful one and made a huge amount of money.

He let his mind take a quick look at how Ponyism was doing, and as he expected, it was decomposing like a fully peeled apple left on a shelf. It was too big a religion to just pop into nothingness, but it was falling apart into small factions year by year. It's temples in many countries were being taken over by other religions including his own, and it's priests and priestesses were going unpaid. When he checked his own religion, it was rapidly growing. On Vallermoore it was starting to get influence politically too, by fair means and foul, open means and hidden ones. And Fire Eater was the most popular religious figure in Vallermoore. Even a few atheists showed up to see him. Many brought offerings of money and oil to the temple, and noone dared to consider robbing it. One look at Fire Eater's blasters and strong metal body would put any thieves off.

Cybertron

Loyal Star decided upon a house in the suburbs. If things went well in the future and he got more Energon, be it through raids, connives, or being paid as a Priest of Megatron, or indeed all three, he could get a better bigger one. Soon enough Silver Blaze set up a meeting and he and his burly bodyguards met Loyal Star who had his first payment of Energon ready.

Decepticon Military Main Base

Unusally, the conscripts were allowed to radio their friends and Coders to let them know of the happy event. When SolarTempest radioed MasterBlaster and invited him along, MasterBlaster replied "I very much look forward to it. But I know your gang is likely to be there too and last time I met them I ended up at the centre of a ring of raised blasters. So please tell them that I have just come for the same reason as the other Coders, to see their offspring at their leaving ceremony. I would rather not lose a body because I came to see you. You are a fine Decepticon and one day you will be one of the richest bots on Cybertron."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Megatron's Villa, Earth

There were few tasks left for Butler to do; as with human homes, not much work was involved when everything was clean and nothing needed to be fixed. He was told to smooth out the landing area, which took only an hour or so thanks to his robotic size and strength combined with the presence of a big smoothing tool for him to use. Then he had to wash Megatron's Energon cup and give it a good polishing.

"Most of your time here will be pretty cushy," Megatron admitted, "but I'm going to be sending some generals, businessbots, patrons, and other high-ranking officials here every so often for getaways. Then, you'll have to serve them. A few of them will find a bunch of work for you to do, so be sure to keep yourself in good repair. But as my property, you can rest assured that nobody will want to be responsible for deactivating you without a damned good reason. Speaking of that, here." Megatron went into the workshop and came back with a blank Save Disk. "Make yourself a Save, just in case someone does get too tempted by knowing that you have to obey pretty much every order."

By "patrons," Megatron referred to Decepticons who had paid big money to bribe him for various things. He figured that sometimes, he'd throw in a week's stay at this villa as a bonus.

"The only orders you will never obey are ones to commit some kind of treason or other attack against me, or to leave this property. Only I can order you to go somewhere. Your chip will ignore any orders to attack me, even if they seem to be coming from me. That ensures that a rebel can't just imitate me and set you up to give me a surprise."

"Oh, and you may run into some Decepticons calling themselves 'abolitionists.' Don't feel bad when the chip's Automated Self-Defense System kicks in full blast on them. These 'anti-slavers' want to get rid of slavery by exterminating the slaves. If those idiots had their way, I'd be the dictator of a bunch of barren rocks! Of course, your ASDS will go off on any would-be thieves, too. It'll also cause you to attack anyone besides me who tries to install anything into you. If anyone gives you any 'free games,' you'll just have to wait until I come back to play - or, more likely, be glad that you didn't get turned into a spy or yanked off to some mine that I don't own."

~~~~~~~

As Megatron cast his mind to the far-off planet, he saw that - as he had expected - the two "very successful smugglers" who started it all were Decepticons in android bodies. This was how they knew of his religion. The details of Megatronism, however, had become muddied as they spread through the expanding human contingent of the gang. Soon, he would have his missionaries there to straighten that out. He considered who he would send to be the priest of the Temple that would come next, and right away, he remembered that there had been a recent arrival who had shown an interest in spreading the religion to primitive worlds. This world wasn't quite as primitive as what the immigrant had seemed to be thinking of, but it was still far from having a Cybertronian level of advancement.

When Megatron looked at closer areas, he was pleased to see Ponyism on Vallermoore quickly decaying. With no pay to keep the priests and priestesses happy, and no goddesses to reward them either, it wouldn't be long before few bothered. Only those who strongly believed in the basic philosophy would remain for the long term under those conditions. He did, however, wonder about these other religions that were trying to compete - and what it'd take to undermine them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Afterlife

The new arrival to the Punishment Corp didn't get the sadistic type of enjoyment that most of its members did, but he felt a sense of immense pride and duty as he went about his work. This made him a perfect fit for missions that involved having a Corp member serve in the role of a "scientist" who conducted cruel experiments on the condemned, or as an Inquisitor who would perform torture for a specific purpose such as punishing blasphemy. The more sadistic types got the roles of those who were more wantonly cruel and less purposeful, such as the terrible child the first Condemned had encountered.

~~~~~~~~~~

Main Military Base

"It's a new practice they're trying," StellarTempest said when MasterBlaster asked about the ceremony. "Apparently, it's General Soundwave's idea. He noted that every other species loves to get some sort of recognition after the completion of a major event, and managed to persuade Megatron to authorize a test program. As for ending up with everyone's blaster pointing at your face, don't worry - as long as you don't come acting like you can give orders, you'll be fine. Just remember that if 'you want' to raid something, you'll need to get your own gang to do it. Ever since we've been officially off duty, we've been planning out our heist schedule!"

Elsewhere

The density of the housing decreased, and the amount of land per residence grew, the farther from the city Loyal Star flew. Finally, he found the address. The house was painted white - a color that was acceptable to most tenants despite its lack of flash - and had trim done in what Earthians would have called Wood's Metal. Here, the special metal wasn't used for solder, but as an attractive covering for the trim pieces and as a nod to the fact that, painted or not, this was still a proper Cybertronian house.

Inside, Loyal Star found marled tan and brown flooring, highly-polished stainless steel countertops, and an Energon vault made to look like a standard cabinet in the workshop. The rest of the workshop contained benches and a shower/waxing unit, but as was customary, no tools.

Outside, the yard was left as plain planetary panels. "You can add statues or a range here," Silver Blaze said. "Just be sure not to put down paint or anything else that'd be too hard to get off after you move on."

After the deal was finalized, the landlord gave Loyal Star a friendly "Welcome to Cybertron" and took off into the sky with his deposit and rent money.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Loyal Star's radio suddenly crackled into life, with a voice he had heard before...as a sapient pony. "So, you made it! Well, I have some time off, so I'd like you to come over to me and you and I can talk magic, and I can help you improve yours. To meet another bot who knows magic is so rare here. I'll be standing on the eastern edge of the Government District, just outside the prohibited area. It'll only take a short time to get there and you'll know me by sight." If Loyal Star had been a pony still, his tail would have been twitching and flicking with excitement that no less then High General Carjack was interested in spending time with him. As it was, his eyes glowed a bright red and his engine purred. He locked up the house and transformed and soon enough, within a matter of minutes he saw the unmistakable sight of General Carjack. He flew down, never accidently crossing into the forbidden area, landed and bowed to the General. "I am here, General." From the brightness of Carjack's eyes, he seemed pleased to see him.

In pony and human society where Loyal Star had lived, Generals ignored the average person or pony and had no contact with those outside a narrow social circle. So this was an amazing meeting from his perspective. Clearly Decepticon Generals had contact with a wider group of Decepticons then human or sapient pony ones did.

*****
Main Military Base

"Before I have come to see you parade, so to speak, I'm going to check my SEDP and see what it says about forming gangs, and if it has nothing useful in it, then I will spend some Cubes at the right educational establishment for a chip with the proper information. You are a wonderful offspring of mine. OK, you did have to point your blasters at me once, but that was just a sign of true Decepticon full sapience. I'm not the only Coder that has happened to."

Whilst most things on Cybertron were corrupt, such as not the case with the better ranked establishments of learning, because they had reputations that were worth protecting. If they started selling worthless information, word would get around and soon their chips would be worthless and no bots would pay even a Cubelet for them. MasterBlaster checked his SEDP for the needed information and if need be, the right place to buy a chip on creating a new gang for himself to command without getting turned to pieces of scrap in the process.

*****
Vallermoore

Fire Eater had finished one of his schedules and the Temple was emptying, when two humans and a sapient pony came to see him. "We are from a TV program called Praise the Lord, which is a religious program that is losing most of it's viewers, and we were wondering if we could have a chance to regain our views and avoid being cancelled by getting your ok for live broadcasts from your Temple? Our program is on one of the major TV channels, and it would give you a chance to spread your message of Megatronism outside the Temple walls. Whilst at the moment the numbers of viewers are small, if anybody can raise them, it's you. The channel it is on can be seen all over Vallermoore."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore
Fire Eater was beyond belief at what seemed to be a huge stroke of great luck! With this deal, he'd have access to millions of viewers!

"You'll have far more than just access to my services," the Priest enthused. "There'll surely be an ad campaign the likes of which your program has never seen, all paid for by the Decepticon Bureau of Propaganda itself. There won't be a single soul on Vallermoore, or anywhere that can pick up a Vallermoorian signal, that won't know exactly when the program's on, what channels it's on, and how they and their immortal souls will benefit - both now and in the hereafter - by watching it! Not only that, we will ensure that its ratings rise so that we both get plenty of sponsorships."

"There's just one little issue. Leader Megatron does not like to be called 'the Lord.' The term 'Lord,' he says, refers to a feudal underboss who is less than the King, and he has always been dismayed that divinities, of all people, are commonly referred to by a lesser name. Also, there are too many Lords out there, so it's not specific enough. Your show's title could refer to praising Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, Vishnu, or any number of others."

"Personally, I think it's a good idea to leave the show's name the same for a few weeks so that its current viewer base, while small, will tune in at the start. But then, Divine Leader Megatron will surely want it to have a new name - one that makes it clear just who's on the other side of that praise, and that there is no hidden King somewhere up there pulling his strings."

"Speaking of that, just which Lord will your existing viewers be expecting to praise? They're in for a shock in any case, but it'll make a big difference for the first broadcast sermon. Some who 'Praise the Lord' are thinking about a pacifistic guy whose main episode of violence involved interfering with some temple businessmen, while others who 'Praise the Lord' are thinking about someone who just might tell them to go blow off some bombs somewhere. Others are thinking of the same Lord as the last, but are expecting a sermon that will simply give them very explicit rules on daily life - rules that typically happen to exclude much fun, but otherwise aren't all that controversial. Still others are expecting to see statues with 8 or more arms and hear how they'll be reincarnated as a grungy pig if they refuse to be good. And then there are the lost, who stick to Ponyism - even though, without its goddesses, that religion can no longer be of service to anyone. I need to have some ideas of what the viewers are already thinking so that I can tailor my welcome speech accordingly."

As Fire Eater talked, he was internally pinging Leader Megatron with the Code Red signal that meant that something extremely important was going on. This caused Megatron to pause his video game, and soon, he was there in the spirit listening in. Soon, Fire Eater heard Megatron's voice in his own mind: "They're desperate. So CHARGE 'em! Make an opening bid for them to pay 10,000 Chingchings per episode to start, and keep that going until the show is making the Temple at least 100,000 Chingchings per episode in donations! I'll contact you again once the deal is done."

Fire Eater got a serious look, and then passed on the message after identifying its source as Megatron himself. He used his Negotiations Data Pack to help, and soon, was mentioning how much such programming would help the show and its producers as well as how it would take some effort for the Temple to set up an area for the broadcasting equipment. At no time, however, did he make it seem like he was anything less than fully interested. He strongly hoped that they would accept; having that kind of coverage would surely grow Megatronism to the level of any major religion, and perhaps, even make it the top one over time.

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

Government District, Cybertron

General Carjack greeted the incoming Decepticon as he held a communicator in the other hand. Soon, he had confirmed Loyal Star's identity with DomIntel.

"I had to check your ID," Carjack explained. "Standard bodies are standard, so anyone can look like anyone else as long as he has a can of paint. DomIntel, however, had no trouble tracing your flight path back to your house so I could be sure it was you and not some would-be assassin. Not that an assassin would get anywhere, but I prefer not to find out about those things by feeling the scorch of a blaster."

"Congratulations on making it the rest of the way through," he continued. "I figured you would, since you left my farm alive and weren't crying for Vallermoore, but you never know. Now: I called you here so that I could help you hone your magic skills. If I let you into the Military first, they'll want to stuff you in the Magical Battalion. Then you'll never learn how it's really done because they'll outfit you with a bunch of 'cheat' devices. Such devices are usually fine and good, but with magic, you don't want to have to rely on stuff to get the job done. If you like stuff, to do things, use your blaster! When you want to do something where it'd be unstrategic to just blast...that's when you'll be glad that you don't need any nonsense devices." He handed over a chip.

The chip turned out to have very little data. It was a snippet of a military report from a few months prior. "Magenta Laser, status, permanently deactivated. Reason: Short in personality chip resulted in deletion of data necessary for life. All attempts at restoration failed. Reason for short currently unknown," it said.

"That ass was a trainer that thought it'd be some kind of good idea to compare my Genociders to a bunch of rabid apes. And since he was a trainer, the protocol is to limit a duel to one or two bodies. On top of that, the Military would have given him new ones, so all he would have gotten was a bit of embarrassment." Carjack growled. Then, with words dripping with false sincerity, he added, "Gee, I wonder what happened to him, and how all of his Saves ended up corrupted?"

After a pause, he said, "It's always best to do magic in a location where you don't care what entities find you. Whenever you transmit over distance, you leave an energy signature, and that's like a beacon to all sorts of things. So we won't be practicing here. I can do without having to fly through 10,000 gits to get home. However, we won't be practicing on an asteroid, either. That effect I just told you about can be useful for me and Megatron...as long as it happens in the right area." Carjack pulled out a hand-drawn map. "Meet me here."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The location turned out to be a middle-class area with a conveniently-wide park. The park wasn't blocked off from citizens - since everything they'd be doing was mental, it would cause no immediate disruption other than them acting a bit strange. On his way into the town, Loyal Star saw that there were plenty of guards around the nearby Megatron Energon pipeline, few stores offering nationalistic paraphernalia like Decepticon Seal decals, and that the place had a generally subdued amount of pro-Megatron tells. Even its Temple was smaller than average. "Clearly this place is insufficiently loyal or pious," the new Decepticon thought to himself.

Upon meeting back up, Carjack confirmed Loyal Star's suspicions. "This joint doesn't realize how good they have it," he complained. "So it's a fine enough area to load up with anything that traces us back. Jinni, demons, interdimensionals, random Decepticon rogues, and everything else that'll follow your n00b butt in. Then if the people here get sick of all the hauntings, they can learn some piety and ask Leader Megatron to fix it."

"Before we get to things that'll cause that, though, we need to work on your stamina. Back in the bear enclosure, you were out of juice in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, there isn't a fast fix for that, though it'll be much faster now that you're a robot. What you need to do is practice until you trigger the generation of Code that will make your efforts far more efficient. Another problem I saw is that you seemed to only have 'canned' spells - ones you were taught by someone. So, we'll tackle both problems at once."

Carjack pointed to a random person hauling a cart with a few Energon Cubes. One Cube was just a little off-center, so the edge of it stuck off the back of the cart. The person didn't seem to realize this, and he wasn't paying much attention to the cart, either.

"Your first practice job will be to use magic to make that Cube there fall off. It's on there pretty good, so it should take some effort over the next, oh, 20 minutes or so, to get the job done. I'll be watching - and detecting - how you go about it. Then I'll offer my tips and corrections. And, if you don't manage to get it to fall, I'll be showing you how I go about something like that."

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

Main Military Base

Before the ceremony, MasterBlaster had checked his SEDP. It suggested that those who wanted to lead raid gangs would have to blast their way to the top of an existing gang AND be charismatic enough to convince the others in it to follow after the original leader was permanently offline. While this information did provide one way to become a gang leader, it wasn't the only one. The SEDP also didn't go into much detail about just how to do either of its suggested steps.

It was clear that MasterBlaster would need to invest in one or two AEDP levels on Raiding to get the knowledge he desired. For now, however, the ceremony was about to begin. He would need to find an educational institute with the proper chips later.

~~~~~~~~~~

The big address area was packed with exiting troops, Coders, gang members, and friends when MasterBlaster arrived. He was given a seat number; there would be no milling around (and possible brawls) for seats here. Soon, the ceremony started. A few trainers gave short speeches, and then General Soundwave - who had been drafted for the job since it was his idea - droned out a few uplifting sentences.

There was no parade; those were only for people who were still serving the Nation in the highest way (via active military service), just the speeches. After only 20 minutes, it was all over. The exiting soldiers didn't waste time for the most part. They used their military knowledge for the last time in this service cycle to efficiently spread out so that they wouldn't hit each other when they took off, and as soon as they were in position, transformed and flew away to points unknown.

StellarTempest remained behind to talk to MasterBlaster. His gang, now all fresh with their newly-learned true Military skills, milled around antsily. They clearly wanted their boss to STFU so they could have a big party and then go raid a somewhat-challenging planet they'd been discussing over the last couple of months.

~~~~~~~~~

After the ceremony, MasterBlaster headed to a part of Decepticon Headquarters that he hadn't been to since he began to Code StellarTempest: The area that held many of the planet's top institutes. Soon, he found a fancy and imposing building with RaiderMasters engraved in its fascia board. He was about to go in when he noticed that almost nobody else was going in. Instead, the most traffic was around a smaller, but still fancy, structure. Using his telescopic vision to zoom in on it, he saw that it was called the Institute for the Maximization of Acquisition Efficacy - clearly a reference to either raiding or conniving.

MasterBlaster decided to go in there, and soon found himself in a room with backlit posters describing the type of AEDPs it had for sale. These posters showed that it was indeed the equivalent of a dedicated college of raiding, and on the third one, he saw that there was indeed a chip with an entire section dedicated to the building and leadership of raid gangs. The catch was that this chip was the third in a series, and to get it, MasterBlaster would have to buy and install the prior two first.

"May I help you?" The highly educated, but not stuffily posh, voice came from next to him. MasterBlaster turned to see a bot painted with an off-white metallic finish that clearly cost quite a bit. His hands were painted with a coating that had a high amount of bronze particles, giving them a subdued, yet upscale, appearance. In place of his stripes, he had the institution's name emblazoned in calligraphic Binary. As was the typical custom, this set of markings were actually painted onto a decal that looked as if it was permanent but could actually be removed at quitting time.

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore

Fire Eater's eyes glowed a bright red, not the shine of a connive in this case but the warm glow of genuine pleasure. This was amazing, a chance to spread Megatronism far beyond the Temple walls. "You'll have far more than just access to my services.
There'll surely be an ad campaign the likes of which your program has never seen, all paid for by the Decepticon Bureau of Propaganda itself. There won't be a single soul on Vallermoore, or anywhere that can pick up a Vallermooreian signal, that won't know exactly when the program's on, what channels it's on, and how they and their immortal souls will benefit - both now and in the hereafter - by watching it! Not only that, we will ensure that its ratings rise so that we both get plenty of sponsorships." He then made it clear exactly why Megatron did not like being referred to as a Lord and that once things had taken off, the name of the program would need to change. So important was this news that it was one of the few times a "Code Red" ping of Megatron himself was justified. None of those puny weak biologicals can talk directly to their God like I can Fire Eater thought smugly to himself. Soon enough his God covertly radioed him.

"They're desperate. So CHARGE 'em! Make an opening bid for them to pay 10,000 Chingchings per episode to start, and keep that going until the show is making the Temple at least 100,000 Chingchings per episode in donations! I'll contact you again once the deal is done."

Soon enough things were sorted out and in a few hours they came back with the barely scraped together Chingchings and some helpful statistics about religion and lack of it in Vallermoore. A third of the population were either outright hard-core atheists (5%) or agnostics. Of the religious, about half of 1% were already solid Megatronists, but another 4% had as yet a weak interest in Megatronism. Of the other religions, Ponyism was still the biggest one even with it's schisms and splits , with large numbers of ponies and humans-as believers- next came Christianity, then Islam, and then the others such as Jews and Hindus and Buddhists, down to the barely 250,000 members of the Queen's Royal Cult, that was barely large enough under Vallermooreian law to be considered a proper religion. There were also many small cults, a few of them illegal and dangerous, too weak to have any impact on Vallermoore. Soon enough they would have a TV crew set up to broadcast Fire Eater's sermons to the masses. "Here are the Chingchings-they are all real-none of us would dare double-cross a Decepticon. And we hope these statistics, dry as they are, will be helpful."

*****
Government District, Cybertron

There was no way General Carjack wanted to risk unleashing a plague of spirits, demons and other undead nasties right into the Government District of all places, where the 1% of the richest and most successful Decepticons, some of them Government ministers, lived. First, it would not go down at all well with Loyal Star, who might well at the very least end up with a treason investigation opened, if he lived long enough after many of the 1% went gunning for him, and second Megatron would not be pleased with Carjack himself for annoying all of the other movers and shakers of Decepticon society. So they went to a poorer and less loyal area to practise magic.

"Your first practice job will be to use magic to make that Cube there fall off. It's on there pretty good, so it should take some effort over the next, oh, 20 minutes or so, to get the job done. I'll be watching - and detecting - how you go about it. Then I'll offer my tips and corrections. And, if you don't manage to get it to fall, I'll be showing you how I go about something like that."

Extending one of the thin tweezers in one of his fingers three feet into the air, Loyal Star concentrated, and in the amazingly short time for a Decepticon of only seven minutes and three seconds, had successfully knocked over the cube. In Cybertronian standards for unaided magic by an average Decepticon, this was spectacular and showed Carjack he had a worthy pupil who had lots of potential.

*****
Main Military Base

SolarTempest's gang gave MasterBlaster a few dark looks and the Decepticon equivalent of "Hmmmpph" but none blasted him. All of them could understand why a Coder would come to an event like this; some as humans had their own children and could certainly understand feelings of pride.

"You are an absolute credit to me and to Cybertron, and one day I think you will be living in the Government District with a gang of a hundred or more bots." MasterBlaster gently pushed the palm of his hand against SolarTempest's. In Cybertronian terms, this was serious intimacy, as physically close as bots got. In fact it was so close a gesture that it was rarely done. As the gang were all immigrants who in their human lives had been far more physically intimate with their loved ones, SolarStorm was not embarrassed by this in the least. Had they been Coded Cybertronians, things would have been different. Going palm to palm with another bot like this was the Cybertronian equivalent of a big hug and a forehead kiss. "I'll be getting further education on being a raider. Go now and may the odds be forever in your favour."

As they left, MasterBlaster heard a familiar voice and a bot he knew well stepped up to him-Framebreak. MasterBlaster instinctively stood to attention.

"At ease, you're in between Military stints now. I remember you well, MasterBlaster, for the best reasons. When one gets used to every unit outright committing mutiny on it's first day in training, it's rare and therefore a pleasure to find an exception. You were a good recruit. So I'll repay you with some good advice. When you're clearly in front of immigrants, they won't mind a gesture like that, and since the bot knew you very well, nor did he. But in front of Cybertronians who were Coded here, that sort of contact would be embarrassing-in biological terms it's like being hugged and kissed on the forehead. In private there may well be times it is perfectly acceptable, like if your offspring just restored your Save Disc and saved your life. But in front of a native Cybertronian crowd you would be embarrassing the bot deeply, and you know how Decepticons tend to react in such situations as being embarrassed in front of bots they know-with violence. My advice could stop you losing a body in the future-put it in your memory banks. Farewell."

"Thank you Sir."

Framebreak had done him a good favour with this very necessary advice. Just like biologicals, robots hated being embarrassed in public.

MasterBlaster soon found his way to a very good college of raiding. There would be no connivery here as it would trash the Institute's reputation and if done often, would lead to angry students coming back and destroying the offending Institution and it's staff. All the chips would have genuinely good information. MasterBlaster had just seen what he wanted, a course on how to get his own gang together, when a well educated voice spoke to him from one of the "teachers" of this establishment. "May I help you?"

MasterBlaster turned around. "Yes please. I want to make my own gang, and this Raiding Course here seems just the right way to go about doing it without losing a body or worse in the process. Please could you tell me how much this course of learning costs?"

[Victorious Decepticons]

First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

"Ah! I'm SO glad you were able to meet our Divine Leader's licensing requirement!" Fire Eater said with what appeared to be great joy, but was actually pure relief. He had negotiated so that the program wouldn't get a bunch of nothing (other than content) in exchange - the expected increase in viewership would attract advertisers, who, as long as they weren't advertising competing religions, could put ads at each end of the program.

Fire Eater immediately considered his options concerning the other religions. Ponyism would be the first target, not only because it was still the biggest contender, but because it was known to have no actual gods and was therefore low-hanging fruit. Christianity was also believed to be low-hanging fruit; messages like "turn the other cheek" flew directly in the face of all sense and reason, and would surely cause at least subconscious frustration in its followers. If they obeyed directives like that, they would be flat-out screwed; and if they ignored them, they would have to deal with cognitive dissonance. Fire Eater had already gotten many converts specifically by preaching that such ideals weren't just against animal nature, but against the higher aspects of sapient nature.

Islam. Fire Eater paused at its name. Islam was a fiery religion, with plenty of ass-kickers rarin' to go and people who were so pious that they wanted to replace secular law with that of Sharia, which was based on its holy book. If it wasn't for some key points, it could almost be Megatronism! Unfortunately, one of those key points was to blast the blazes out of anyone trying to raid its followers. While moderates might not care too much, he could likely expect a few bombing attempts if he flat-out went after it without subterfuge - and since Megatronism also said to blast the competition, such a thing would cause a two-sided religious war.

On the other hand, 50% of the Muslim population - the women - would likely be quite glad to follow a religion where their afterlife reward wasn't to serve pious Muslim men. There would be a few exceptions - there are always some that are fine with a status quo - but surely most realized that being second to men was not an ideal situation. The trick would be to bring them over...without drawing the attention of said men until it was too late.

For now, the other religions would not be focused on, though the Queen's Royal Court drew his personal interest. He figured that Megatronism's general messaging would pull at least a few from all of these minor faiths.

As for the atheists, he figured they'd be the easiest to convert. Most atheists argued that there was no proof of the existence of a god. All that would be needed would be for Megatron to show up and do something godly, and then, after the atheists spent enough time trying to replicate the act with science, they would have to admit that there were some things even science couldn't accomplish. Of course, some would always insist that Megatron's miracles were tricks and refuse to believe no matter what, just like some of the followers of other religions would, but many of them would probably go ahead and join. Any miracles, however, would be a long way off - there were so many members of other religions that would likely convert just from talk that there was no pressing need to do anything extra-showy yet.

Fire Eater paused again at the notation that some of Vallermoore's cults were illegal and dangerous. "What sorts of things do they do?" He asked.

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

By the time the first broadcast took place, the First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore had been thoroughly cleaned and polished. Even Fire Eater seemed to gleam more than usual, and that took some doing. Specifically, he wore 15 extra coats of wax for a better-than-showroom shine, and had installed brand-new eye panels to boot. A better speaker system had been put in place after test runs showed that the microphones used by the camera crew were picking up echoes.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Propaganda had, as expected, purchased enough advertising that the only someone living in a cave, which was in a patch of woods, which itself was surrounded by miles desert, wouldn't have heard of the new program. Ten million Chingchings talked loudly - on billboards, on the internet, over cell phone apps, in newspapers, on radio stations, and through news-esque press releases to local TV stations.

Astroturfing campaigns, handled by top ForIntel agents in both human and pony bodies, brought word of the program to bars, grocery stores, and other places where people milled around. They made sure not to outright shill it, instead choosing to try to pique people's curiosity and get them to tune in.

Another 10 million Chingchings was already queued up for the next week's ads. Overall, the campaign easily matched anything done by a major corporation.

Fire Eater knew that the first broadcast of a new program almost always got the most viewers, with viewership tapering down as people's initial curiosity was satisfied. Then, if a show was any good, viewership would rise again after a few weeks, while if it didn't capture people's interest, it would continue to fade out until cancellation. He felt the pressure build - it would be his job to keep the interest of as many viewers as possible.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The first televised service started simply enough. Fire Eater welcomed the viewers, along with those who had tuned in hoping for the old program. Then, he went through several talking points. While an outsider might think that there was no specific purpose to his choice of points, he actually made sure to hit on the parts of each major religion that he figured were causing discomfort, cognitive dissonance, or dissatisfaction in their ranks - and then pointed out how Megatronism had THE One Sensible and Correct Viewpoint on all of them. Of course, he made sure to tell everyone what that viewpoint was, and do so in a manner that would make all but the most pious followers of other religions at least wonder if maybe their current one had it wrong.

All of this was delivered in a very fiery and riveting manner, complete with plenty of stories. Then, the songs he chose spoke of glorious Decepticon victories and how even immigrants could rise to be generals if they were proper practitioners of the Decepticon Way. Finally, he read Megatron's Speech at the Founding of the Nation, making sure to stop and add commentary to relate it to biological life and note how biologicals' lives would be improved by adopting at least some of its principles.

At the end, Fire Eater made sure to note where to send donations (the address of the Temple came up on people's screens as he did this) or call them in (a phone number, newly-registered, appeared). However, instead of ending with the gimme like the megachurches of old Earth, he made sure to say a blessing prayer. Also unlike other churches, he had already set it up with Megatron so that this blessing would actually do something. Everyone who watched and heard the blessing would feel a rush of power for a few moments, and for the next day, would gain a small but noticeable increase in what was usually considered luck.

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

An Unnamed Town, Cybertron

The Decepticon pulling the cart heard the clunk of the Cube hitting the ground and immediately rushed to put it back. His expression showed some confusion, but he made sure it was set on there very stably this time.

"You did well," Carjack said, "It shows that you do have proper Coding for magic and that it wasn't just some biologically-based capability! but I want you to see that there are many ways to use magic to accomplish things." He looked back at the one with the cart, and immediately, his fans could be heard speeding up. Within two minutes, the robot tripped for no apparent reason. As he did so, he yanked forward on the cart's cable, and the sudden motion made the Cube fall back to the ground.

"Doing things like you did has its points, and that works well when you can figure out exactly what to do. But in many cases, the solution isn't so obvious. Here's another challenge: Cause a small-load hauler to fly low over that spot, there." He pointed at an area of sky that currently had just regular people flying through it.

This sort of magical task was much different from physically moving something. Loyal Star would have to use his mind to influence a professional courier to deviate from his normal (efficient) flight route and pass over that spot. Such a task was notoriously difficult, and when it involved someone who had a reason to always choose the most efficient route, it made it even harder.

Carjack had a system for doing it, but he gave no clues. He wanted to see if Loyal Star could make it happen, how, and whether he'd have any energy left after the attempt. On Earth, Loyal Star was good at magic but had run out of power quickly - and if anything would run him out of it here, it'd be trying to get a professional flyer to choose a less-efficient way of getting somewhere.

"You'll want to master this," Carjack encouraged him. "With this kind of skill, you can go to another planet and make oil trucks practically appear at will, at least if you're not hours away from their normal routes, that is."

~~~~~~~~~~
The Institute for the Maximization of Acquisition Efficacy

The salesbot was pleased at the chance to sell at least three levels of AEDPs, but he also looked concerned. "I can sell you the chips easily enough," he said, "but you should know that what you want to do is one of the things that also requires live practice. You won't be able to just go get a raid gang out of nowhere after installing the Series. Instead, you'll need to practice things like speaking, dealing with sudden events, and keeping people on point even as the SAMs are coming up around you. It does say how to go about practicing in the AEDPs, but I figured I'd warn you up front so you don't buy them and then get mad that they don't give you instant mastery like, say, an AEDP series on being a mechanic."

"Now that I've let you know that: It will cost 10,000 Cubes for Pack 1, 10,000 Cubes for Pack 2, and 30,000 Cubes for Pack 3 - for a total of 50,000 Cubes. That'll get you to the module on how to start a raid gang, build its membership, and retain your position as its leader. However, if you want to be able to raid anything other than a very primitive target, you should also get the other two Packs in the series for a total of 50,000 Cubes more. Then you should go to the Institute for Paramilitary Mastery and get their series on Raid Gang Tactics and Strategy, which was 200,000 Cubes for the full set the last time I checked. Oh, by the way, that's another one that requires live practice to master, even for those who have been in the Decepticon Military before. Running with a raid gang is not the same as operating within a national army. The Paramilitary Mastery people offer training services for an extra fee."

As with many expensive series, the Tactics and Strategy one would be broken down into several smaller AEDPs. This would allow people to buy chips as they could afford them rather than having to come up with the entire amount at once. However, thanks the big raids MasterBlaster had already done with his original gang, he had more than enough Cubes to buy all of the Packs in any series he was interested in.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jackhammer Mining Company
Blue Ridge Mountains, Former USA, Earth

This coal mine was a small one, privately owned, but it had made sure to grab several ponies as slaves during and just after the invasion of Equestria. Coal, though well-obsolete as a fuel, was an excellent source of the carbon needed for making steel from iron. Therefore, it was in quite high demand - in some places, it seemed like there was more demand than ever before.

Inside the mine, ponies worked wearing muzzles with special filters. The mine owners had learned that running biologicals in a coal mine without air filtration would cause them to crash after only a few decades, so now, all biologicals had air filters on their faces. Other than that, there was no protection other than common sense, and most of the workers were black with coal dust. One, however, always seemed to remain fairly clean: Spoiled Rich. Except for a double set of hoof prints on her side, delivered by someone who was clearly jealous of her, she seemed to be in great shape.

The mine's owners couldn't understand it, especially since her mine carts were always full to quota as they came out of the tunnels. In fact, sometimes hers were the only ones filled properly; the other slaves often slacked off and came up short. Beatings would be delivered and the output would increase, but soon it would drop again - except for Spoiled Rich's carts, that is.

After this activity went on for quite a while, the owners became suspicious. Soon, with increased diligence, they saw that one of the overseers - a former stallion - seemed to be way too interested in the mare and even doted on her by bringing her better food than the usual Pony Slave Chow. This was considered bad because he clearly had been neglecting his duty of overseeing the other ponies.

It would not be until the overseers were given their standard company-provided maintenance that the rest of the story would become apparent. The overseer's air filter was positively clogged with coal dust! There was only one way that it could have become that dusty: He'd been doing Spoiled Rich's work for her! Only using a coal-cutter all day would put him so close to the source of the dust as to clog his filter like that!

This let the owners know that there was much amiss down in their mine, and they began a company investigation to find out more. They mainly wanted to see if he'd been hacked by the pony, and if so, how. They also wanted to know if any other overseers were similarly in her sway. Soon, they sent people from their office down into the mines and began to interview the other slaves about the situation.

[Vallermoore]

First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

"Well, we have a nasty little cult called Rame Tep, not more then a couple of hundred strong, that likes to shoot people with needles from blowpipes, and the needles have drugs that cause the most horrible hallucinations that you could imagine. People have run into fast moving traffic, opened fire at things that are not there, jumped out of windows, attacked people and even committed suicide under the drug's effects. And from the point of view of the authorities, they are a real nuisance because they target not homeless people who few or no others care about but the middle class and even the rich. They would be no threat to you though, your armour would stop their darts and your body would be immune anyway. One thing they like to do is sneak into places which are supposingly well guarded and assassinate someone to make the guards and owners of the area look weak. If you have trouble with any of the small cults, it would be them. They would love to find a way to kill a Decepticon just to show they could do it, or kill Megatronists right under your nose to make you look weak and scare people away from your Temple."

"We have the Violetists-they just target the destitute much like your Scroungers of Cybertron ,so they are still illegal but slightly more tolerated by the authorities. Murder is very illegal here no matter who is killed, but the higher ranking a murder victim is, the more effort is made to track the killer or killers down."

"And we have non-violent but illegal cults like Scientologists or Christian Scientists who are just a pain."
*****
Unknown to them, a small branch of Rame Tep was considering how they could murder Megatronists at prayer in the temple itself as a public slap in the face to Fire Eater. or even find a way to kill Fire Eater himself, ignorant as they were of just how hard killing a Decepticon really was.

*****

Never before in the history of Vallermooreian TV had a little known religious program that had been on the verge of vanishing from the airwaves altogether been so well advertised. And it was above board as well, at least on the surface. In fact the Chingchings needed had been secretly brought from the Decepticon Interplanetary Bank, but since the forgeries were so good, noone knew they were forgeries.

A full third of the viewing public tuned in for this first program, as many as for a soccer cup final or the news of a major disaster. Many most likely would not watch the subsequent programs, but enough would to make an impact. Fire Eater pointed out that Ponyism had no alicorns and could offer it's followers nothing. His words would have an effect, speeding the decomposition of the state religion as more and more ponies and humans either became Megatronists, atheists, or switched to some other religion. It would not be long until the great holy places of Ponyism did not have enough alms to fix their roofs or pay their priests or feed their monks and nuns or do anything that a religion did. In effect, what remained of Vallermooreian Ponyism was being verbally blasted into scrap. Some Ponyist priests would make would wonder if they were in the wrong faith. And these were priests, the strongest in faith of any religion or cult.

The other religions were stronger and their gods or goddesses still lived, but there would be defections from them as well, although not in such vast numbers at least for now.

Donations would indeed flow in as a result to the Temple. Those who had been wavering Megatronists were now solid Megatronists, and in fact one in ten of the religious members of the population were Megatronists now. A Megatronist Party had formed, with secret ties in several other political parties. Laws, any laws, were getting slightly harder to pass, with smaller majorities in parliament.

*****
One morning a woman came running into the Megatronist Temple, pursued by a man waving a sword about. She explained "Up until now, I have tried to be a good person, but my husband won't stop beating me, and now he wants to honour kill me. I know it is not a Decepticon thing to protect the weak, but I will convert and be your acolyte and clean your body for you as long as you don't hurt me and you keep him away from me. He has been maltreating me for years." She cowered behind Fire Eater as the swordsman started advancing towards her. Either the man with the sword totally thought Fire Eater would not intervene, or he had very little common sense. Whilst it was true that it was not a Decepticon thing to protect the weak, it was not in biological v biological cases totally forbidden either, and if Fire Eater did decide to intervene, he had two perfectly good blasters on his arms and metal fists as well and a body of Decepticon Steel.

*****
An Unnamed Town, Cybertron

Loyal Star decided to make it seem in the mind of the cargo-bot that a large number of Genociders were flying in front of him so he would turn to avoid them, as Genociders were bad bots to tangle with. This was much harder, as he had to project magic through the electronic defences that protected the cargo-bot's mind. And was using a dangerous amount of mental power too.

The Institute for the Maximization of Acquisition Efficacy

The salesbot was careful to warn MasterBlaster that mental mastery in this case did not automatically bring physical mastery.

"I'm going to go and come back with the needed Cubes, I'll be back soon. It would be ironic if I needed to raid to learn how to raid" Clearly MasterBlaster had a long time of practise ahead, but it would be worth it to have his own raid gang one day. He got his Cubes there without incident, paid for the needed chips, virus checked them (they were clean) and installed them there and then.

*****
Jackhammer Mining Company
Blue Ridge Mountains, Former USA, Earth

The fact that one pony by the name of Spoiled Rich was pretty clean was strange, but at first nothing was done as her coal truck was always filled. Unlike the carts of the other ponies near her. It was found out that the overseer in her sector was bringing her apples and other such luxuries and clearly not doing his job properly. One day it was maintence day to repair any small bits of overseer wear and tear and found the filter of the bot Iron Hard was clogged with coal dust.

"Come and look at this. It looks like the ponies somehow hacked Iron Hard!"

That was the first thought that the other bots had-somehow, most likely through magic of some kind, a pony or ponies had hacked a Decepticon, a serious threat to all of them if it were true. A formal company investigation was started, which meant that ponies could talk without being beaten for being grasses. And most were happy to do so.

"Before she was taken as a slave when the invasion happened, Spoiled Rich had her own daughter held down and branded with a magical red hot iron, to make sure she got a certain cutie mark. Back then, getting a cutie mark was the best time ever of a pony's life-like when you became sapient for the first time, and she ruined it for her daughter. Her own mark is a ring, which grants her the power to make any adult stallion- or former stallion- fall in love with her."

It was found that Iron Hard, hacked or not, had almost finished digging a tunnel to the outside world which would have let every pony in that sector escape, losing a large amount of Cubes for the company if the ponies were not caught. Several bots jumped on Iron Hard and held him down, whilst a Cybertronian Coded bot who had never been a biological picked up Spoiled Rich and took her to the head of the Company. The Company head glared at the pony with dark eyes. Not only had she seemingly hacked one of his staff, and nearly masterminded a mass slave escape as well, but whilst free she had tortured and maltreated her helpless offspring by branding her on the flank with a red hot iron. Like most Decepticons, he hated those who tortured their own immature offspring.

She glared angrily up at him. "I suppose you're going to kill me, you bucket of rusty bolts. At least my spirit will then be free."

Vallermoore

Most Holy, Archbishop of the Vallermooreian Ponyist Church, said to the President of the Central Committee "Are you just going to let this...robot, buck our state religion to bits on TV?"

The President replied "First, he is a Decepticon, and they are not bots to mess with. Last time they were messed with we were nearly invaded. But even if he were not, he has not done anything wrong that we know of. He has never called for revolution or harmed anyone here. If your church is falling to bits it is your own fault. I don't agree with everything about Megatronism but it has a lot of good points to it. We have freedom of religion here and if Megatronism is busting your religion, find a true pony goddess who is still living that your followers get behind, or your religion will end up a mere cult and will have to pay taxes. And having to pay taxes will mean most of your property gets repossessed."

[Victorious Decepticons]

First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

"Rame Tep, huh? And they'd think they can touch this?!" Fire Eater was about to laugh, but then he remembered how the Temple actually had pretty much no security at all except for himself. "Well, I'm sure our Divine Leader will provide something special for them. They sound like an odd bunch. It's the first time I've heard of spreading mental errors as being part of anything someone would consider a divine mandate. As for their ability to sneak into places...well, if they were following the right religion, they could see the universe. But since they're not, I hope you have room in your foundries for what'll be left of them if they attack here."

Even though the cult was supposed to be small, Fire Eater knew that a temple backed with a multimillion-Chingching advertising budget and that was on TV every week would be a huge target. After the producer left, he quickly called the Foreign Intelligence Division and asked for several armed guards to be sprinkled throughout the audience every week. Since it was to protect the Temple of Megatron, the request was quickly approved. By the time the first show aired, the security was in position. The entire back row, closest to the doors, was made up of ForIntel agents in visually-exact android bodies. Four uniformed guards, also from ForIntel, stood at the doors - complete with bomb-detecting modules built in that allowed them to directly "sniff" explosives with no need for dogs or searches. Agents were also peppered throughout the large audience. While it was possible that attackers might be able to sneak in, they wouldn't be able to do much before one or more agents would take them down.

Perhaps surprisingly, the guards weren't ordered to disarm people who were carrying standard guns or knives. While it was possible that gun-carrying people would be from Rame Tep, it was also possible that they'd be held by those who could shoot back even faster than the ForIntel agents could get clear shots. Explosives and any other weapon capable of large-scale destruction, however, were strictly banned from regular audience members in the belief that here, it was likely that only the enemy would have such things.

Now that everything was ready, Fire Eater made a shocking pronouncement during the second broadcast.

"It has come to my attention that some puny WIMPS called Rame Tep think that they can touch this!" He said, grabbing the microphone with aggression. "Rame Tep! I suppose you wimps think that we'll be afraid of you! Well guess what! Megatronists aren't afraid of anything! I dare you, I dare you, to try something here!!" Fire Eater brandished his blaster. "This blaster isn't just here to weigh down my arm. It's for WIMPS like YOU! And I'm sure that as proper Megatronists, we all have weapons that are just dying to be used on something other than paper targets. People, show 'em what you've got!"

All across the temple, Megatronists pulled weapons that had previously been concealed and waved them in the air.

"Megatronism is not a religion that tells people to be WIMPS! It is a religion of strength! And if you, Rame Tep, attack here, we will wipe you off the face of the map in a War of Righteousness the likes of which you have never seen!"

These pronouncements were followed by a fiery sermon of how Divine Leader Megatron would never advocate weakness or capitulation in the face of an inferior foe - and how all foes were automatically inferior because nobody with any sense would be Megatron's foe in the first place. He went on to preach Megatron's message of Strength and make sure to note that while intellectual strength did count greatly, getting out one's blaster and using it was considered the appropriate response to physical threats. "By the Decepticon Way, these Rame Tep morons shall be eliminated!" Fire Eater concluded just before giving the closing blessing.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Mansion

Leader Megatron leaned over a huge map of the known universe, his eyes dark and glowering. This map was full of color. There was a massive swath of green across most of the planets. Then, there was brown over several of them, sometimes striped with the green and sometimes alone. Cybertron, Earth, and a few other planets were in red. Vallermoore had many different stripes.

A legend at the lower right explained the colors.
Green - Coder of the Biologicals
Brown - Ponyism/Harmonism
Red - Megatronism
And it went on.

Around him, the more intellectual of the High Generals sat at attention. The soldierly ones were still doing their usual Military duties - they were great fighters, but not so good at figuring out the technical aspects of new challenges.

"This." Megatron stabbed his finger into the green area, causing a bang against the desk below. "This guy, this factory producer with his ten million googols of followers all over the place. How are we going to kick his ass and turn all that area red!"

General Shockwave responded first. As the head of the Bureau of Impossible Physics, he was also the head of its sub-department, the Bureau of Paranormal Research. "The biggest problem we are currently aware of is simply getting to the place he resides," he reported. "Every time we think we have a lock on it and send a scout, the scout ends up in some kind of aethereal place that, from all we can tell, is just in the middle of nowhere. The portals we detect just disappear before the scout even finishes making it through. Even worse, it seems that these portals draw all sorts of evil, and our scout ends up surrounded by entities that want to possess him if not rend him totally asunder. Here is a Debugging Report from one of our attempts. You'll note that the scripting they had to delete - after physically overpowering him - is not hack code. It's full-on sapient scripting belonging to other beings who had gotten inside of his own code and were in the process of deleting that original code."

Megaton's eyes changed brightness in a way that made it appear as if they'd actually widened. "So that stuff is real~! And these things just tried to take over our scout's body and delete him, instead of attempting to work a deal!?"

"Yes, sir. The few who did try to deal weren't the ones in his Code. And, the 'deals' they proposed were quite transparent connives. One, for example, promised him control of a planet in exchange for dissing some 'Holy Spirit' being. The 'dealer' obviously didn't expect him to insist on checking it out first."

"So what was this planet that was offered?" Megatron asked, figuring he'd just send the Military to seize it.

Now, Soundwave answered. "It was an empty part of space. No planet at all in the stated location, and on top of that, it appears that there never has been one there."

"Agh," Megatron groaned. "Well, they say that Satan, whoever he is, is always full of used oil sludge. I suppose it should be no surprise that his followers are full of the same thing. I AM surprised that the possession attempts got so far, though. Carjack has always said that they're perpetual n00bs."

"They got so far because our scout hadn't believed those reports and figured that some sort of physical connection would have to be made in order for that to have a chance. But that isn't how they worked. It was all done telepathically. Of course, we are busy reverse engineering what we DID see of how they worked. The ability to mentally replace key personnel in foreign lands, and do so in a way that leaves no dead bodies, would be a great boon to ForIntel." Shockwave said, nodding over to Soundwave.

"Did anything strange happen at our end of the portal?" Megatron asked.

Shockwave responded. "Quite a lot. When we got our scout back through, about 100 entities followed after him. We were only able to get rid of them by bringing a soul-capturing device over from the Soul-Powered Energon project and then immediately running them through."

"How much Energon did their souls make?" Megatron asked greedily, but his thrill would be short-lived.

"The entire batch of souls produced only two Cubelets, and the grade was more like asphalt than Energon. It seems that any major effect they may have isn't from their own power, but instead, results when they manage to take someone over who actually does some power. However, with the exception of our scout, most who are capable of even getting into the aether have some sort of psychic defense, and, well, enough sense to stay away if they see a horde of evil beings and aren't either a hotshot warrior or one of them. Our scout would have gone away too, but we ended up dropping him right into the midst of them since we thought we had a direct shot into the target realm."

"And the Coder of the Biologicals responds to attempts to invade by basically making the portal to his realm just disappear. Even portals opened by technology. And on top of that, there really IS some kind of war already in progress that we'd be flying right into." Megatron stopped looking towards the map and stood tall. "Dismissed for now. I will have to consider this. I also need to consult with the one who was on leave today, General Carjack. Maybe he has some kind of idea..."

~~~~~~~~~~

General Carjack had a low-power mental scan going as Loyal Star attempted to meet his challenge. He soon detected what the new person was up to, and mentally noted the flaws in his plan and how he was going about trying to bring it into being. However, he said nothing yet. He knew that if he did, the ex-pony would just think that he would have succeeded if he'd been given more time.

~~~~~~~~~

When the woman ran into the Temple and hid behind Fire Eater, he was quite surprised at the entire situation. Before he could tell her to fight her own war like a properly self-respecting person, the guy with the obsolete weapon was right in his face. He grabbed the sword's blade with ease and held it firmly. His expression was one of absolute disbelief at the entire scene.

"What in the slag is this about!" He demanded to know from the man, while still preventing him from moving the sword or taking it back.

Humans had a bit of a reputation for provoking others and then playing innocent when things went wrong, so he wasn't inclined to just take her word for it. However, he wasn't foolish enough to just believe whatever the man said, either. Fire Eater secretly activated his full lie detection program, expecting used oil sludge to start flying. He also quickly ran through his Foreign Cultures module to determine likely scenarios that would lead to such a scene as this - and what he should do if he was convinced that she didn't deserve to die.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mining Company

The Company's CEO was quite confused. How could someone harm their own offspring, yet set up an escape for a bunch of randoms she hardly even knew? He posed this question to the odd being before him.

Spoiled Rich looked surprised at the question. "That tunnel was for ME! Surely my dear Iron Hard - " She shot a seductive look in Iron Hard's direction - "wouldn't have let it be sullied by mere peasants!" It was clear that, before now, she hadn't even given the other ponies a second thought. It was all about her freedom, and the others could go jump in a biological rendering pit for all she cared.

"I see." The CEO, Coalmaster, said as he looked down his nose at her. "Well, I'm not going to kill you. A dead pony is only worth 1 Cube at Rendering. I shall sell you to some other company and let them deal with you."

Immediately, the native Decepticon overseer clapped irons around all four of her pasterns and cinched up the chains in between so she was severely hobbled. She was then carried out to wait for a domestic cargo hauler to pick her up. As this was done, her voice could be heard indignantly saying, "how dare you! I'll have you know that *I* am one of the richest ponies on Equestria, and..." the voice went on, but the overseer carrying her had temporarily tuned his audio processing program to ignore the frequencies it used - effectively rendering him deaf to her, and only her, voice.

At first, she was put into a metal box and the lid was closed. There, she had to wait, in tight hobbles, for an entire day and a half. No water or food was provided, and the heat inside the pitch-black container rose to very uncomfortable levels. Meanwhile, Coalmaster was on his communicator looking for someone to offload this problem creature onto. Finally, he found someone.

Without a word, the transport box was loaded onto a small cargo plane, and Spoiled Rich found herself on a very long flight. The cargo-bot, already used to ignoring the whines, pleas, and groans of livestock, was quite surprised to hear that whoever was in the box was indignantly complaining! Unlike the overseer, he thought it was funny and listened with chuckles, knowing that if she thought coal mining was bad, she'd surely think her next stop was detestable.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Peatery
Southeast Asia, Earth

After many hours, Spoiled Rich felt the wheels of the cargo-bot touch down. "It's about time! Now get me out of here, you peasant, and give me a bottle of spring water!" Her demands, though now in a weaker voice, could easily be heard coming from the box. "And get these awful hobbles off of me! They've surely mussed my pastern hair! That is no way for a proper lady to be treated!"

By now, the cargo-bot didn't think her commentary was funny. He'd heard it for at least 5 hours, and he wanted to whip her so hard she didn't have any hair left to muss. He waited impatiently for the buyer to come and take his mistaken purchase, and was glad when some bots finally came and did so. Spoiled Rich heard the jets fire, and knew that wherever she was, she was supposed to be staying for a while. "I'll just have to get me a new robo-boyfriend," she thought to herself, not knowing that none of the robots here had ever been biological.

When the crate was opened, light blasted in and temporarily blinded her darkness-accustomed eyes. Before her vision had a chance to clear, a bit was jammed in her mouth and a halter was strapped around her head. "Come on, you stupid nag!" A gruff voice ordered, and she found herself roughly yanked forth. Since she was hobbled, she had no hope of keeping up and was soon being dragged along on her knees. She tried to demand better treatment, but as soon as she said a single sentence, a muzzle was tightly crammed over her snout. Then a whip cracked down on her side, cutting a gash. "Shut up you dumb horse!" The order came. Then she was dragged further into the installation, and the ground became very muddy. Within minutes, her once-clean hair was caked with a wet material that smelled uniquely earthy and highly organic.

By now, her eyes had adjusted. She looked up and saw a giant brown robot with his feet caked in a nearly-black material. Close behind him, hundreds of ponies, many of whom looked sick and in pain, pulled harvesters through a giant bog. Piles of peat moss had been formed at the sides of the bog. There, humans used shovels to put the piled peat into square containers. Humans also put containers onto carts. Non-sapient draft horses, much bigger than the ponies, pulled these carts across muddy tracks that didn't even qualify as roads. The horses were little better off than the ponies.

"The seller said you'd need extra discipline - that you have trouble realizing who's boss!" The gruff voice barked. Immediately, she was hoisted up by her leg chains and taken to a stand made of wooden poles. There, she was chained up by her front legs. The original chains were removed so the back legs dangled, though the shackles were left on so that it'd be easy to chain her back up later. Finally, the muzzle was yanked off of her face so she could talk again.

"Name's Breaker!" The overseer introduced himself angrily. "I'm gonna teach you who's boss! I'm gonna teach you the proper place of biological scum like yourself and the proper attitude that goes with it! And you're gonna be re-taught and re-taught until you get the message!" A heavy whip crashed into her, opening up the skin all along one side. "Here's lesson one!" The whip crashed down again and again 10 times, and then came the command: "Call me 'master' and beg for mercy!" At first, she tried to speak as usual, but this was met with another lash to her already raw side. "It don't make any difference to ME if I beat your worthless hide to death!" The overseer warned. There was no way out of it. She would have to beg, humiliating herself - or die.

[Vallermoore]

First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

Only about 40% of viewers who had seen the first program turned into the second-but most of these would be loyal viewers. As it turned out, a single Rame Tep member had managed to creep inside undetected to scope our the place like a raid scout would. When he got out he would tell the others "If we attack Megatronism, we will lose. Not only that, we would be taken apart until Rame Tep just ceased to exist entirely. They would torture our followers into submission and hunt down every last one. If we want to be allowed to exist, we must leave the Temple and it's Priest alone." The announcement Fire Eater made was wildly popular even amongst non-Megatronists. First, nobody except for the very few cult members liked Rame Tep. At all. Second, was the bravery that was shown.

Most Holy, Archbishop of the Vallermooreian Ponyist Church, was also considering somehow attacking the Megatronist Temple, when a bishop of his church alerted him to the sermon from Fire Eater that caused him to abandon the idea and make plans for going to another planet that was mainly pony occupied, where Harmonism was still the main religion except for a few small, illegal cults. In fact, on the planet he was planning to go to, Harmonism had it's own Inquisition which was almost as strict towards other faiths as Domintel was on Cybertron. A few days later, surprise news came in. Ponyism, whilst still a major religion, did not have enough members to be the state religion anymore, and was thus liable to tax. That hit the religion's finances like a tsunami and scores of Ponyist Churches and monasteries and nunneries had to be put up for sale, although Sapient Pony sections of graveyards for earth ponies and unicorns and the crematoria that cremated Pegasui ponies were exempt. Only one major Ponyist Cathedral and a few minor churches survived, and only about a tenth of the priests could still be paid. This in turn hit it's members, trapping Vallermooreian Ponyism in a death spiral that if it were not somehow stopped would end up lowering a much proud religion to a cult status.

For now, as the largest religion on the planet, Christianity was now the state religion of Vallermoore, although Megatronism was now free to try and get as many members as it could from the disintegrating Ponyism. With a living God, even if He was remote, Christianity was a much harder target to defeat.

*****
That sword was coming far too close to the body of Fire Eater, who really didn't want to have to spend time dealing with an ugly scratch on his body, so he held it's blade whilst he got to the bottom of things and decided if him killing her was justified or not.

"She ran away from me!"

"Only because you won't stop beating me," the woman retorted to the man.

*****

The Peatery
Southeast Asia, Earth
Spoiled Rich was going to get a horrible shock.

"Well, I'm not going to kill you. A dead pony is only worth 1 Cube at Rendering. I shall sell you to some other company and let them deal with you."

She was firmly chained up and put in a box, and left there. The cargo-bot she was put into at first found her complaints hilarious and a welcome change to the normal crying and begging for mercy, to the point that he laughed about it. He soon wanted to whip her though, but knew that her owners would not like having their stock that they had paid for in advance damaged in transit. Besides, where she was going they would whip her for him. When he landed and she was taken out and muzzled, cutting off her protests, she found her destination was a peat bog in which hundreds of chained, bug bitten, itchy, sweaty, in pain ponies toiled away cutting the peat under a huge cloud of mosquitos. Since they were immune to bug carried diseases, they remained alive to suffer. Many of them had tried to escape from other mines or been caught doing something else they should not be doing. A huge, dark eyed bot towered over her with a whip.

"Name's Breaker! I'm gonna teach you who's boss! I'm gonna teach you the proper place of biological scum like yourself and the proper attitude that goes with it! And you're gonna be re-taught and re-taught until you get the message!" She squealed in pain as he ripped open her whole side with his whip. "Here's lesson one!" Lash after lash came down on her, delivered at a slow speed so that it didn't cut her in two. "Call me 'master' and beg for mercy! It don't make any difference to ME if I beat your worthless hide to death!"

"Mercy Master!! Don't kill me, I'm not ready to die!"

"Mercy? To the one who branded her own little foal? Oh yes, they told me all about your nasty ways. You may have some clean water so you don't crash on me and die and then you will toil in the peat as food for mosquitos for the rest of your life. Here is where they send most of the bad ponies. Those who tried to escape or otherwise messed up but not enough to die, mainly end up here. Now have a drink and then get to work!" After a much needed drink of water, Spoiled Rich was put to work where the mosquitos descended on her wounds and bit. She did get a few good scratches in at least for now with her hooves, but that slowed down her healing. There were no apples or other pony treats for her here, she just had Slave Chow to eat, whilst her cutie mark had been whipped open and would end up covered by scar tissue.

Back at the mine, a bot asked Coalmaster "Was Iron Hard forcibly hacked by this pony, in which case he needs Debugging, or should we put a slave virus into him for being stupid enough to let Spoiled Rich make him fall in love with her in the first place?"

*****

Megatron Mansion

If any biologicals had been able to see the map, they would have marvelled at it. Cybertron, Equestria, and other planets near it were a fiery red, the colour of Megatronism. Coltan was orange for Masherism. Several pony planets were a deep brown, and there were various other planets in various shades. Vallermoore was several colours, but was a lot less brown and a lot more red. The Coder of the Biologicals was proving very hard to deal with, but perhaps General Carjack would have a solution.

*****
Cybertron

Loyal Star was trying his hardest, but although he had plenty of power, it was not adapted to the task of affecting a Decepticon mind, which were as well protected against most forms of hacking as their armoured bodies were against blaster fire. It caused sensors to go off, warning the cargo bot of an attack of some kind, although without saying who was doing it.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

After a long time, Carjack finally told Loyal Star to stop transmitting.

"Now that I've seen you do something that required more effort and planning, it's time for your first lesson," he said. "I figured that you'd have difficulty with something of this nature. Telekinesis and short-range effects can't do something like what my challenge entailed. It also requires a different kind of thinking. It's hard to master - humans in general had such abysmal results that most didn't think it was even possible, and would chalk all of its results down to luck. Whether it was good luck or bad luck, most didn't even consider the thought that there was an operator behind some of the supposedly-random things they saw. But before I go on, let me show my credentials."

Carjack leaned back on the bench and appeared to go into a state just above what would be called a trance, with his head back and his hands on his thighs. His body looked mostly relaxed, but that was mainly because metal bodies don't have muscles to tense. His engine, however, was revving and his fans were spinning like mad. Clearly, he was used to running a system where increasing the operating speed of the body provided more mental power - specifically, a biological body. Alas, all that these unconscious responses did for his Decepticon one was cause thermal breakdown of his oil to be accelerated and his chips to get hotter, though neither effect would cause any real problems thanks to his standard maintenance schedule.

This went on for approximately 15 minutes, when out of the blue, a small cargo-bot came flying right through the designated space before banking and going back toward his usual route.

"Wow! How'd you do it?" Loyal Star asked incredulously.

After several moments, during which Carjack's engine returned to normal, he mostly "came to" and leaned forward. This was another leftover response pattern; even after many years, he expected to feel a rush of blood to his head and a dawning headache. Soon, he returned fully to normal lucidity, though his fans continued to race in order to dissipate built-up heat.

"Ah, I'm always glad I have a Decepticon body after I do something like that," he said. "With a human one, I would have been loopy for many minutes if not longer. Now. As for how I did it: The key is NOT to mess with the mind of a particular cargo-bot like you were trying to do. All one with any willpower will do when you do that is double down and concentrate harder. What you DO is send your will out in a far more general fashion. I aimed for ANY cargo-bot within range to come through there."

"Next, you were too specific in your method. I could tell that you were trying to get him to 'see' some sort of barrier by interfering with his mind. I, on the other hand, transmitted for ANYTHING that would cause him to divert - except for a few things that I specifically 'coded' against happening. This allows the full range of possibilities to simply converge in a way that will produce the desired result."

"So what was the actual thing that made him divert his course?" Loyal Star asked, surprised that Carjack hadn't already said.

"That's the kicker with this tech - oh, excuse me. I always refer to a telepathic method as 'tech' or 'technology' even though it's not what a scientist would consider to be tech. Anyway, the kicker is that I don't know the details myself. I transmit; the universe responds." Carjack got out his communicator. "Usually I never find out just how something of that nature worked, and I usually don't care, either. Just as long as it does, and I don't get any blowback, it's golden to me. But I'll radio DomIntel and get the details, just so you can get a look at the other end."

He did so, and after identifying himself, the local office suddenly became willing to trace back the cargo-bot's flight path. For most agencies, this would be hard - but thanks to the Supercomputer, it was actually a snap. They just had to pull up the place and the specific time Carjack indicated, point to the cargo-bot on their screen, and the Supercomputer easily went through its files for the last hour and picked out all of the films that included that one guy.

Carjack put the communicator on speaker when DomIntel came back on.

"He was flying along without incident until 10 minutes ago, when some idiot flew into his way out of nowhere and made him almost flip to avoid a collision. While that was happening, a gang battle that was going on entered the skies and went ahead of him. When he'd righted himself, he saw the dogfighting and decided to detour around it. Not long after that, he came through your area of interest before turning back to his normal flight path. Now, he's landed at Decepticon Parts and is picking up a load of jet engines, which will be rebranded as Master Modification Turbo Jets and sold in Brightland 10 miles away. End of report. Anything else, General?"

"That'll be all; thanks a lot," Carjack said, closing the connection. He turned to Loyal Star. "And there you have it. You get the principle now: You send out your intent, and just let the rest happen however it wants. Except: Always, ALWAYS, make sure to code the energy you send out to EXCLUDE any possibilities you don't want." The General looked pained when he said the last part. He had obviously encountered the Law of Unintended Consequences in a very serious way at some point. "Oh - and that includes coding not only against blowback to yourself, but any associates you care about or uninvolved bystanders..."

"For this little job, I coded against major military assault, the cargo-bot being damaged so he crashed or was forced down there, him being raided, him landing on our heads, and a few similar things. It should take you longer to think of what you DON'T want happening than what you do. Never skimp on the details of the anti-monkey's paw part!! A n00b with this sort of skill starting is dangerous...so dangerous that if it wasn't Victorious Decepticons, but it was a place magical enough to even think about it seriously, it'd probably be banned. But once you get it down, you'll love it - and it WILL be worth it."

"As for practicing it, don't start out trying to control flight paths as a way of drilling. Instead, go for small stuff that won't blow up too hard if you monkey's paw yourself. Monkey's paws will happen, it's just part of the endeavor at first. Avoiding it is the sort of stuff you have to learn mostly by experience. There's a few reasons for why you have to practice: I'm not about to cut an AEDP - I worked way too hard to learn this, 2) if you have to work at it, YOU won't want to cut one either; preserving the exclusivity of the skill and keeping OUR advantage intact, and finally, 3) there's no way to use a pre-done script because every situation is different. Much like in a military battle, sapient calculation is an absolute requirement - both for success, and to avoid shooting yourself and others in the foot."

At this point, Carjack took a can out of a small storage panel in his upper arm. It was clearly marked "Barq's Root Beer." "I always like to have a can of Barq's after I've been transmitting. It's a desire I'll never have patched out." He proceeded to spritz the can for less than a second with something that steamed off in big white clouds. "A little liquid nitro gives it that just-out-of-the-fridge cold. But it has to be sprayed only a little, or it'll freeze like a glacier!" He laughed before opening it. It made a delicious-sounding pop-hiss when the seal was broken, and he drank about 1/3 of it.

"One other thing: You were trying to affect your original target's mind to make him see things. That's not how to go about that. The idea that all hallucinations are the result of a wide-ranging mental condition is false; that's only true of certain types. You would have only needed to cause his visual circuitry to register the desired result - his consciousness wouldn't need much, if any, interference at all. Once his circuits registered the sight, his reaction to it could still be all his."

Carjack now looked directly at Loyal Star. "Now before we call it quits for today, let me ask you this: Can you do remote viewing?"

~~~~~~~~~~

First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

Fire Eater stood there incredulously, his slice-proof metal hand still keeping the sword still. He was having a hard time fathoming such a situation! A Decepticon would have killed the guy while he defragged, or by using some sort of trick, if direct combat wasn't a viable option! Yet here was this person cowering behind him, saying she had not only been beaten, but repeatedly!

"Clearly you are of some...other religion," he said to the woman. "A Megatronist would have offed this guy after his first beating, and for acting like you were property without having fitted you with an enslavement chip. If one of us wasn't strong enough to fight immediately, we would have used tricks to get the job done, or even hired an assassin to do it for us. But he surely would be dead or at least down a body if he didn't take things to the end right away."

He turned to the man with equal disdain.

"And YOU, what kind of glitches are you Coded out of, anyway?! If you beat someone up, you obviously don't like that person. You should be glad to be rid of her if you hate her so much! Her going away means you won without having to duel to the death! Many Decepticons would love it if their enemies just flew away peacefully!"

As Fire Eater was saying this, his mind was pulling up files trying to figure out the rest of the story. He finally located one about honor killing, and realized that she was probably supposed to be his wife...or, perhaps, her brother or father! He also realized that they both were likely to be of a competing religion.

The man, on the other hand, had heard the words "enslavement chip" and was at least partially thinking of how he could use one of those. However, he was also insulted and enraged because the robot had said he was Coded out of glitches!

"I ought to give both of you handguns and have you duel it out," Fire Eater said. "Then if she's too weak-willed to shoot you, she gets what she deserves; and if you're too lousy of a shot to win first, then you get what you deserve. In humans, guns eliminate the strength difference, so the contest is fair in a properly-set-up duel. Either way, the matter is settled forever. That is the way of Cybertron, and it prevents these unnecessarily-ongoing problems."

"I believe that dueling is illegal here, but I'm not entirely sure of that. If it is, I can easily arrange for your transport to somewhere that appreciates decisive solutions."

Inside, Fire Eater wondered where the cops were. Surely someone had seen this guy running down the street waving a sword! Was it true that cops only appeared to those who least wanted them, like some kind of demons incarnate? It would be a grave crime against Megatronism and the Decepticon Way if he were to call them in, though. Megatronism expressly forbade even cooperating with law enforcement, let alone calling for it. As a Priest, he would suffer even moreso for breaking that tenet of the Way than the average person - and the average person could look forward to a fast swim in the slag for that.

Jackhammer Mine

"This isn't Megatron Metals," the CEO responded gruffly. "We do not use Decepticons as slaves. I do think that it's a good idea to send Iron Hard to Debugging, since only they can tell for sure if he's been given a virus or not. However, I think that there was likely some sort of magic involved. That mark she had wasn't just a ring - it's the kind of ring biologicals use for things like weddings, engagements, and deep friendships. And I've noticed that those marks highly correlate to what a pony does best. For instance, our best worker's mark is a lump of coal."

"So she...she, like, magically hacked him?"

"That's what I'm guessing. Either way, if Debugging finds nothing physical, Iron Hard will be fired, and he won't be getting his last pay. No slave will respect him now, and we can't trust him. If there's no physical virus, there'll be no way to ever be sure that he's really okay. It's too bad, too. She's probably forgotten all about him now that he's of no use to her."

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

The Peatery

The mine's CEO would have been amazed at how right he was. Spoiled Rich was coming onto all of the overseers as if she'd been single forever. To her dismay, all she got for her efforts was more whippings and a higher quota. "If you have time to think about romance, you obviously have energy to do more work!" They'd say each time. Soon enough, she was worked so hard that she couldn't think of anything at all besides racing to cut enough peat out of the bog to avoid yet another beating.

Currently, she was covered in a thick layer of salve meant not to ease her pain, but merely to prevent localized infections and flystrike from attacking her whip wounds. She was also chained to her assigned cutter along with another mare - her owners and overseers had heard enough about her to realize that if she was chained with a stallion, she'd try to offload all of her work onto him. Even worse, she could end up in foal if she got near a biological stallion! The one thing they didn't want going on was reproduction. It'd slow up the mare, and at the end, stick them with a being too young to do any work!

The owner of the Peatery also did some research to try to find her filly, thinking that he might be able to buy her up for cheap since she was likely to be as irksome as her mother. Alas, after much checking, he found that Diamond Tiara had been sent to Biological Research. There was no public record of her after that point, and to a Decepticon, that was all that needed to be said.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

"It is possible, but normally with a chunk of fine rock crystal, and ponies had to be careful doing it in case they burned their magic out. But now that I am the best form of life possible-a robot-a Decepticon robot, I could have a go. I'm not sure what to try and view though, and I don't want to view something that gets either Domintel or one of the Mafias of Cybertron after me if I get found out. Why not ask me to view something I have never seen but you have? Then you will know if I am doing it right."

*****
Jackhammer Mine

Two bots had to drag Iron Hard into Debugging where they could shut him down, fix his damaged code, and find out the cause. "Ugh!" said one of the Debuggers when they looked at the damaged Code. "Somehow this unfortunate bot ended up having his Code filled with romantic love for a sapient pony. Poor him." Soon enough he was fixed as far as they knew,and as no implanted virus, slave code or other such thing was found, he was sacked on the spot and would never be hired by that company again. The tunnel was blasted to prevent the last few feet of it being completed, and then the ponies were ordered out into the sunlight to check for the same type of cutie mark. Whilst it slowed down production, it was worth it to stop another overseer being hacked. Two ponies were found to have heart cutie marks, and a third to have a ring.

"Shall we sell these three as well?" an overseer asked.

*****
The Peatery

Spoiled Rich was crying. Her once fine mane was covered in peat, her wounds itched like crazy, and when she was caught biting and scratching she ended up in a muzzle and plastic hobbles that let her move enough to work but kept her hooves away from her itches, without rusting in the mire and poisoning her. This was how the rest of her life would be spent, in a living hell roasting under the sun or shivering in the cold and the rain.

*****
Fire Eater's fans were whirring to protect the vital mind boards from heat. Biologicals were so strange!

"Duels are legal but just in arenas rather then a public place, and I would be happy to duel with a handgun, and then convert to Megatronism if I survive, but he never gives me the chance," the woman said.

"Because I own you," the man said to the woman.

Police sirens were heard a street or two away. Clearly someone had called the police.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
"A chunk of crystal?" Carjack asked. "You mean like scrying? I should have you show me this. The one thing I've never mastered is scrying. I've tried and seen interference by other entities, tricks from them, the results of my imagination, and often, nothing at all. But if I send my own mind out, I can get an accurate-enough picture for my purposes, so I've always stuck to that method."

The General thought for a while. There were a few unique things he knew of that could only be seen by remote viewing, but while he was just itching to spill certain secrets, he knew it would be forbidden to point them out. State secrets, after all, had to stay off the radar. Some of them, even the rest of the Military didn't know he had found out - such as just what it was that continued to cause the damaging energy field within Iacon City.

"Hmm," he pondered. "You're not used to doing this, so a mind-flight to another planet is probably out of the question. It takes quite a while to build up the kind of mental energy and stamina to go that far and back." Suddenly, he jerked up - he had an idea. He showed a holograph of a heavily-guarded vault complex, and in the image, lit up one of the smaller vaults in red.

"See if you can tell me what's in my vault here." He challenged.

The actual contents of the vault were 50 different Earthian arcade machines from the 1980s, along with a single skinless android body. It was Carjack's private arcade, and secret from most Decepticons. As a newbie, Loyal Star would be unlikely to be able to detect all of the details, and in fact, may only be able to pick up the presence of vague, low-powered sapiences inside the concrete vault. However, how well he'd actually do, or if he could manage it at all, was yet to be seen.

~~~~~~~~~~

At his mansion, Megatron was getting impatient. He considered calling Carjack, but decided to wait for another few hours. Everyone knew that the General was a night person, and Megatron wanted to catch him at his best - and in a mood to do something other than demand that his leave be honored.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Jackhammer Mine

To the dismay of the remaining employees, Debugging - after getting permission to disclose the data from Iron Hard - reported that there were no actual hack programs running within him. A cap on his ability to feel romantic love had been corrupted, allowing it to reach blind-obsession/obedience levels, but that didn't cause the love to exist in the first place. They fixed the cap, returning some self-control to him, but the love itself was deemed Not a Glitch. However, once the cap was back, he was able to realize that he had been used to do Spoiled Rich's work and to build her a tunnel. The love would self-extinguish soon enough with that knowledge in place.

He tried to convince them to let him keep his job, but alas, he had no success. Even worse, the company kept his last pay, saying it would go toward fixing the damages to the mine. Now, the ex-overseer, who hadn't been too good at saving, found himself stranded on Earth without enough fuel to get back home. His only viable way to make money now would be to take a job, and he realized with horror that the only jobs on the planet for people other than overseers were for miners.

Iron Hard certainly wasn't going to try to end up a worker in his own mine! He flew away, resolving to apply at a different location - one that was unlikely to try to enslave him. This meant that Megatron Metals was out of the question. Even though it wasn't company policy to enslave willing Decepticon workers and their pay was known to be top-notch, he didn't trust them. Eventually, he remembered that there was a granite works that had been doing quite well, and made his way to their offices. Stints as an employed, paid miner lasted for 3 months and required working 24/7 for the duration of that time, but once it was over, he'd have a whole heap of Energon Cubes to show for it. After a week or two of defragging and a trip to Debugging, he'd end up on the good side of the deal.

~~~~~~~~~~~

When the three ponies were brought before the CEO, they cowered down in fear. There had been rumors of other mines where owners would bring biologicals to their offices to do sadistic things to them, or make them perform humiliating shows, or other such bad reasons. They also feared other rumors that said biologicals were sometimes brought to a company's head office so the boss could confirm an order to render.

"Hearts and a ring," the CEO commented. "So do you have a lot of fun with such abilities?" He asked, mainly to see what their personalities seemed to be like by their responses.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

Fire Eater was taken aback. "Oh, he wouldn't? That means he's afraid of losing. All of the bravado leaves him at the thought of you being able to shoot back. No wonder he was coming after you with that big knife while you were unarmed." he said disdainfully. "You have to challenge very publicly when someone is scared to fight properly! Then he'll have to go through with a duel in order to hide his cowardice, or else be known as a craven dog in his entire neighborhood."

"But in any case, he's here now, but so are you. And that means that now, he has no excuses. I'll provide two guns of the same make, model and quality, and then schedule a duel. Unless, of course, he's so chicken that he just concedes right now."

He turned to the man. "And what's this, 'you own her?' Is my Data Pack obsolete? I didn't recall slavery being a thing here. It seems to me that you think you are a law unto yourself, even though you don't have nearly the level of physical power needed to successfully ignore local regulations."


As the sirens drew nearer, Fire Eater considered his options concerning them. He decided that even though helping law enforcement was against Megatronism, he didn't necessarily have a duty to actively interfere with it - at least, not unless they were about to screw up in a major way. There was also no duty to let either of these people into the Temple since it was an off-day. He decided to wait and see what these oft-mentioned and despised creatures - "the police" - actually did when faced with a situation involving others of their species, rather than giants who had come to take oil.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

"After I have tried sending my mind out, and probably failed, I want to show you scrying. It is easier on your mind boards and I would be happy to help you." He concentrated and sent his mind out, slightly straining his mind circuits and revving a little as he tried to see, with General Carjack's approval, what was inside the General's vault. He managed to see some things but they were unclear. "There is robot life of a sort, many low level sapiences, and one empty body, human size, but it's not all that clear what the low level sapiences are. Now, if we could get hold of rock crystal of Decepticon hand size or bigger, I could show you scrying. And soon you will have learned the one major bit of magic that you don't know already. The crystal does most of the work for you."

********

Jackhammer Mine

The fired employee from the Jackhammer mine would have to earn his Energon as a miner in another mine, which was embarrassing. He would vow to himself to avoid falling into the same trap again. As a former stallion, he should have remembered how magical those cutie marks were . His own had been the symbol of a robber pony which was one of the reasons why he had passed all the tests for Decepticon citizenship. Instead he had been magically hacked and humiliated by a spoilt mare. It could have been much worse. If he had been working for Megatron Metals he might have been hacked by them and turned into a Decepticon slave.

One pony said "Master, my heart cutie mark was a symbol of being faithful and loyal and a good boyfriend. My loved one, sadly, she died fighting when Canterlot fell."

The second said, "Master, when I got my stitched heart cutie mark it meant that my family were overjoyed as they thought that I would be a well paid cardiologist but in fact it meant I could cheer up the downhearted and the broken-hearted."

The third, a mare, whose mark was a broken wedding ring, said "Master, my talent was and is, breaking up engaged and married couples by seducing them. I then either blackmailed them or arranged to nark by proxy so their wife or husband found out about it. One pony had his wedding that cost him 50,000 Equestrian Bits ruined because of me. A second ended up committing suicide and a third got locked up for life for murder after he killed his wife because of my machinations. Ah, those were the days. I would still be using my talent now if I had not been captured and sold to this mine."

She smiled, not noting the eye-panels above her darkening. To blackmail was Autobot-like and to nark was disgusting and illegal if a Decepticon did it. Clearly she was a very nasty piece of work indeed.
*********
Vallermoore

The man let the sword go and tried to get out through a side door only to be grabbed by police officers just outside the Temple. "William Fenrik, you are under arrest for waving a sword about in a public place."

The woman intervened. "if he will accept, I wish to duel him to the death. He has treated me badly for years."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

As soon as she challenged him, Fenrik shouted, "I will not lower myself to duel such an inferior! That would make it seem like I considered her my equal! No - she needs to be put down like the dog she is!" The insults faded, but didn't stop, as the cops put him in the back of their car.

The look on Fire Eater's face was one of amused disgust. "Well. I guess this wasn't public enough. That, and his culture, if it can even be called that, is so different from what I'm used to that I never expected him to actually use 'Coward's Spin' to avoid a duel. Don't take his claims of your inferiority seriously," he said as he turned to the woman. "He's a coward through and through, and is saying that stuff to try to justify his refusal."

Then, the priest turned toward the police. "Is that all you're charging him with?! He clearly wanted to kill her! It should be attempted murder for sure!"

~~~~~~~~~~~

After he finished to the cops, he invited the woman into the Temple and led her to his private office. There, he had her wait outside the door as he flashed the interior with a bug-destroying EMP, just in case. Afterward, he beckoned her in.

She found herself in a fairly small room with a burnished bronze desk, two upholstered chairs on her side, and a metal chair on his. A glass of Energon, half-full, sat on his side. Some blank paper was on what would be his right, while blank foil-paper was in front of his seat. A water cooler and paper cups was along one wall along with a file cabinet. The walls of the room were properly Cybertronian and made of high-quality steel. This was in contrast to the office in which he usually met members of the congregation or the public, which were painted in rich cream. It was clear that this office was his most inner sanctum; the one he used for special business.

He walked over to the water cooler and poured her a cup. After handing it over, he invited her to have a seat. Surprisingly, he didn't sit behind his own desk, but took the other chair on her side - after making sure to grab his Energon.

"Obviously I couldn't say anything with the killjoys out there," he said in muted tones. "But we Decepticons do have ways of dealing with people who refuse to duel, but who will clearly be problems in the future. You probably haven't heard my sermons on the TV - he would surely consider them to be against his religion, not to mention threatening since I often speak of how important it is to be strong and not wait passively for others to come to your rescue."

"Are you suggesting I just kill him?" She asked, immediately getting his general thrust.

"If you can get away with it, then yes. That's exactly what I'd counsel. However, the fact that you haven't slit his throat in his sleep already, tells me that there is some sort of interference such as a legal system that has its priorities backwards. Your willingness to duel, however, has given me the confidence that you have no ill-placed moral concerns about such a thing - and this is why I invited you to my office."

She now leaned forward with interest. Was he going to offer to do it for her?

"It'd be too obvious if I killed him for you, and not only that, that would be too far into the territory of enabling weakness. However, if you were to come up with, say, resources equal to 10,000 Cubes...I could arrange for a little surprise for him. The kind of surprise that happens only once in a lifetime."

"That's quite a bit of money," he went on. "However, I believe that Mr. Fenrik's house might be converted into the appropriate amount of Chingchings, at least if he isn't poor. Of course, he won't agree to such a sale, but it's not like he'd be in a position to complain about what you do with his estate. You ARE set to inherit, right? Or do I need to file a new will for him to make this work~?" He paused a bit and then added, "Or are you...unwilling for some reason..."

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

"I'd be very interested in seeing actual, working scrying!" Carjack said. "I will add, though, that there are many benefits to my method of remote viewing that go far beyond the viewing part. You see, once you're able to project your consciousness to remote place, you can also project your consciousness and mental force far from your body. Remote viewing is what could be called a foundation skill. It is important in its own right, too, though. You would want to see if you were about to fly into a building, or perhaps if some being or other was flying up on you with war in mind. And it's frankly easier to do those things if you're not looking at physical images of where you're going while you're going there. Physical image processing runs through an entirely different script, and it'll just eat RAM that you could be using to defeat your enemy."

"Even so, I do want to see the scrying, because it'd be great to offload the work when I really do only want to see something. And, of course, ForIntel would also be VERY interested in an ability like that!" He paused. "I'm surprised Equestria's old leaders didn't see that attacking us would be a Very Bad Idea since that ability exists. I'd think visions of a planet teeming with war robots would have deterred them. I guess being a goddess made Celestia too cocky."

The general paused for a moment. "As for what's in the vault, the physical image looks like this:" He projected a hologram. It showed the side and front walls lined with arcade machines, with an android body leaning against the back wall. "Those are old - very old - arcade machines from Earth. Most of them are actually sapient, however, they don't attain our level of thinking if left in their original configurations. Oddly, they mature amazingly quickly for about three years until they're the equivalent of about 13 years old in human terms. Then, their maturation ceases to advance. When I first detected sapience in one of them, I was about 12, and he was akin to maybe 8. By the time I was at the end of 13, he was also like 13. But then I kept on maturing, and he didn't. I would suspect that it was a hardware limitation - machines of that era were, even in human terms, quite primitive compared to the ones humans made just 20 years later. On top of that, he spent his formative years in an arcade like all the others of that type in that era. That in itself caused many, many errors thanks to what that environment was like then, and Debugging was not at all happy when I brought him in."

"The one I speak of, though, is not in my arcade. He's living in Xylan, a big city in the next municipal district, and runs a mechanic's shop. Yes - when he realized he was on a planet of nothing but machines, he was ecstatic and eagerly learned the Decepticon Way to the best of his abilities. Then, to my dismay, he called in a promise I'd made to him years ago: To provide a body with at least the capabilities of a human one if I ever gained the ability to do so. At the time I'd agreed, we were on Earth, and there, the tech was so far away - even for machine-to-machine - that I didn't really think it'd happen! But I delivered, knowing that it would be no fun to have him around if he ended up hating me. Then, he applied for citizenship and they granted it even though he's definitely an honest type. He got by because he authorized a code-read as the first step, and it showed that he was so glad to not be under the control of humans that he would be eternally loyal. I will admit that his joy was well-founded. He'd had an exceptionally hard life in his original arcade, where he was abused constantly by people who thought they could beat him into letting them score better. Of course, they couldn't get him to do anything differently because he was physically unable to do so - the game program is entirely separate from the mind that has managed to develop around it, and exerting control over it for even fractions of a second took him extreme willpower and much training."

"Fortunately - for ME, anyway - the ones I have now didn't even know that being mind-transferred was possible, and I also had never made them any promises. In fact, I didn't know them at all until we invaded Earth and I went looting for arcade machines. And, since they're foreigners from Earth, that means I get to keep them as they are, just as if they were some conquered biological species. They appear to have followed the same basic maturation pattern as the one I knew well, and just because they're machines doesn't automatically entitle them to upgrades. This is why they seem like low-level sapiences compared to us. They're actually amazingly bright for the hardware they use, but maturity-wise, will be perpetually 10-13 in terms of equivalence to human minds. The one good thing is that they have no hormones, so at least they'll never get the chaos of puberty going on."

"As for the body you saw, it's mine. I mind-transfer to it in order to play the games. That's one of the main reasons I use a vault for my arcade: personal safety. If I used a body like that without plenty of protection, rivals would come out of the metalwork to attack me."

"Anyway, about the scrying: Where do we find the rock crystal?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Jackhammer Mine Office

The CEO listened with his lie-detection scripts running at max. The first two, it seemed, were likely telling the truth. Therefore, he said to keep them. Even so, he ordered that they be placed far away from any former biologicals just in case.

As for the last one, she sounded like a real piece of work! "What's the point of breaking couples up only to nark on them!?" He demanded to know. "Blackmail, at least, has some sort of financial payoff. But doing such things just fer seems like a glitch, not a 'power.'"

The blackmail aspect didn't really bother him. Autobots were into protection rackets, but that wasn't quite the same as getting ahold of some juicy information and using it as leverage. Blackmail was certainly nasty, though - especially when the root cause of the existence of the evidence was a setup! He wanted to send her straight to rendering, but in the back of his mind, he wondered if he could sell this one to ForIntel for big Cubes. Yet, he thought she was almost surely too untrustworthy for them to believe that she'd actually work with them in good faith. Still, he figured he'd give it a try just in case they could figure out a way to force her cooperation.

[Vallermoore]

Vallermoore

A policeman explained "What he is facing alone will get him between six months and five years in prison and the same amount of probation time, and if she wants to press charges for attempted murder he could easily face a long jail term on top of that. He was caught by several witnesses and cameras too. We won't ask you for a statement as that would be asking you to in effect commit treason according to your own Decepticon laws." They soon left the scene, and the woman was invited into an area that no humans and only one sapient pony had seen. The private study of Fire Eater.

After Fire Eater made his pitch she said "I am most certainly not unwilling ,any love I had for him died a long time ago. But one thing holds me back-if I sell the house and pay you how will I ever afford somewhere to live? No wonder you Decepticons don't bother with romantic relationships, it is not worth the hassle."

******
Cybertron

"All we need is a large piece of quartz for the scrying tool, as that has the best results and shows things the most clearly, and then you can think for example of someone and even if they are in disguise, even if they are some rat biological in a country with formal witness protection, or some Decepticon going undercover in another body under another name, it can find the biological or bot and listen in to what they are saying and point out where they are. Do you know of a planet where such Quartz could be found? I have been to so few at the moment.As for Celestia, that idiotic has-been, she lived for a thousand years and thought she was untouchable. Fancy starting a fight with Megatron about a grass! Of all things. That's like fighting about a lake of water! For as long as enslaved ponies remember freedom her name will be hated."

Jackhammer Mine

"Back in freedom I never knew a coltfriend or fillyfriend of my own so I decided to spoil the relationships of others and got my cutie mark in doing so. I guess my life is probably over now. And I won't have a nice time in the afterlife."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Jackhammer Mine

The CEO was appalled. Doing bad just for the sake of being bad, or for flimsy pretenses, was frowned upon even by Decepticons. The robots had no problem with doing something for some kind of tangible gain, or to bring down a true foe, but this sort of behavior was another matter. Someone like this would attack and backstab others, and while their reasons may have made sense to themselves, they would be unpredictable and crazy from the viewpoint of an outsider. It was always best to get rid of such a person before s/he could turn on the next person without warning.

"So you did it just because you were jealous. And not even to actual enemies! You are right, you have no place in this realm anymore. We can't have loose cannons like you around." He turned to the guards. "Take her away!"

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

To the mare's surprise, she wasn't put on a transport bot to a renderer. With a materials value of just one little Cube, it wasn't worth the fuel to make a special trip. Instead, she was carried over to a large glider-trailer with an open top. The stench of death was soon apparent as they got closer, as was the loud buzz of tens of thousands of flies - this was obviously where dead bodies were kept until there were enough of them to make a trip worthwhile. When they got up to the trailer, the overseer carrying her picked up a long rod that was leaned up against it. At the tip of this rod was a thin pick-like bayonet with dried material still on it.

With a move that could have used a bit more practice, he forced her head down on the edge of the trailer while maneuvering the pick into place at the base of her skull. "Your new journey begins now," he said, with the sort of attitude one might expect of someone who has to put down a dangerous animal but would rather not have the task. With a single thrust, he stabbed her through the base of the skull, up the hole in the skull where the spinal cord went into the brain, making sure to take out both the brainstem and cerebellum in one quick move. She died instantly.

Once the overseer confirmed a complete lack of vital signs, he threw the body into the container. It landed on top of hundreds of other carcasses, many of which had been brought over from other mines since no single installation in the area had all that many of its own. The overseer put the pick back in its place and walked away, looking a bit sad about the whole affair even though he agreed that she deserved her fate. If such things happened often at this mine, he likely would have quit long ago. Fortunately for him and most of the slaves, it was actually rare here. That trailer was used by many mines as part of a cost-sharing agreement, and except for a couple like the latest addition, the ones that came from Jackhammer had only died after decently-long lives. Like many other companies, they did euthanize slaves who were too old to work, but this overseer had begged off of that task as a condition of signing on.

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

Cybertron

"Ah, quartz. I've heard so many people go on about quartz! A lot of n00bs like to wear a crystal of that over their hearts, believing that it absorbs negative spells. What they don't realize is that it's a HUGE obvious target to the type of vision you use for remote viewing - and therefore a huge target for firing psychic energy at! All you have to do to paste one of those crystal-wearers is blast away until you overpower the stupid rock. And it isn't hard, because the amount of rock that can be comfortably worn that way is very small - not enough to withstand any sort of dedicated assault."

"But the funniest battle I fought against a crystal-wearer didn't actually involve crystal at all. The enemy thought she was wearing a crystal, but in reality, it was a plastic fake. Fakes had become common on Earth after the idea of wearing them became popular, and people whose eyes weren't so great couldn't see the difference. Then they'd go off half-cocked pissing off people like me, who were always decently eager to show them the folly of their ways."

"In any case, I'm glad you're not suggesting that it has protective value. As for where to get some, amazingly enough it's surely available right here. We use industrial processes to make all sort of stuff, so it should just be a matter of ordering it."

Carjack beckoned Loyal Star to come along, and soon, they found themselves at the outskirts of Iron City. Here, several loud factories lined the streets, and the area was filled with the whistles of high-pressure equipment releasing its pressure every so often. After circling once, Carjack transformed and landed with Loyal Star right behind him.

"This factory here says it makes a variety of 'pressure stones.' Those are basically stones like quartz, diamonds, and other crystals that would naturally form from thousands of years of geological pressures. Typically, industrial replication involves taking either the precursor or a sand version, heating it, and then mechanically compressing the heck out of it until it's just as dense and crystallized as it would be if done by nature. The point of making it this way is to avoid having to bother mining and just hoping to get high-quality stuff. Industrially-produced crystal is always 100% pure unless the specs demand otherwise."

The two walked into the office in front, and after a pleasant hello and welcome from the secretary, they were soon greeted by a salesbot who was quite surprised and happy to see a High General at his company. This happiness wasn't from the thought of dealing with The Genocider in particular, but instead, the thought of dealing with someone who might have access to the Decepticon Military's massive budget! His smile faded a bit upon learning that the Military had not abandoned its policy of doing all of its own work in-house, but when he heard the size of the crystals Carjack wanted, he was not sad either.

"That's custom work," the salesbot said. "It's much more difficult to make giant quartz crystals than it is to make quartz sand! However, we do have the equipment to make them that big. Just bring in 100,000 Cubes and your order will get started." He smiled. To his dismay, Carjack immediately began to dicker, noting that once everything was set up, there would be no need for sapient input for a long time. He finally managed to chew the guy down 10%, but no more. Decepticon-sized scrying crystals were not going to be cheap.

Now, Carjack and Loyal Star went to his vaults, but to Loyal Star's surprise, the one they ended up entering was full of giant Kilocubes marked Carjack Biofuels - and empty Kilocubes marked Megatron Energon. Carjack closed the door behind them, and then said that there was no functional difference between the two types. "Megatron Energon successfully propaganda'd that mine doesn't taste as good, so I have a hard time selling it. But that's noise. The truth is that if it's possible to taste any oil in oil-based Energon, it hasn't been refined as much as it could be."

"Despite that, there's a prejudice against biofuel Energon now, so if I bring it in with my name on it, he'd want to only credit a Cube as 5/8 of a Cube. So I switch it into containers that are more enticing. Now start pouring." They began to pour the required amount from the Carjack Kilocubes to the Megatron Energon ones. Soon, they had done this 75 times. "Now, remember, not one word to the guy. And activate your poker-face script so you don't give it away when I hand over these Kilocubes that cost me about 10 Cubes each to make. Oh, and as for why it's only going to be 75 Kilocubes, it's because my stuff grades as Supreme for the merchant tests and is therefore worth more than Standard."

After a couple of hours of this work, Carjack had the required Kilocubes loaded up onto one of the carts from the vault complex. The pair took off, each one towing the glider-cart from a separate lead line, and then landed at an airstrip a couple of miles from the quartz maker. "This is the most dangerous part," Carjack warned. "We'll be walking with a big load right through the streets only a few blocks from Iron City. It's illegal to impersonate a General, but a lot of people do it anyway to try to deter thieves. This means that Corporation adjuncts are likely to think I'm not who my markings say I am, and they'll have to find out the hard way."

As he talked, he pulled a solid top over the cart that was clearly made of armored metal. "This'll at least hide how much money is in here and protect it from stray blasts, but that much Energon is heavy enough that they'll hear us revving under the load. So keep your blasters ready..."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

"Certainly there's some kind of asset we can redirect, then," he said. "Maybe a fancy car? Or you could use the Decepticon Way somehow, but if you aren't an experienced practitioner, you could end up getting busted..."

Fire Eater looked at the sword, which he had been holding all this time. "Say, where'd he get this blade? How old is it? Some of these things are worth quite a lot of money, especially if they're antiques. On the other hand, some are barely worth the metal they're made of. If it's one of the classy ones, it could be worth 10 grand or more~! It'd be very satisfying to get the money for his deletion by selling the sword he was trying to delete you with."

"Oh, I must add that you wouldn't be paying ME for a deal like this. You'd be working with the Interplanetary Oil Procurement Corporation. Their leader is on the outs with Divine Leader Megatron, but the Corporation itself is still thriving - and they're the best for any sort of business of this general nature. It's a huge syndicate with plenty of experience."

"If you were on Cybertron, you would simply need to go into one of their stores, walk up to the counter underneath the sign that says 'assassinations' and hire someone the same way as you'd hire a guy to cut your lawn. They are the leveling force for those who need to get rid of someone but can't do it themselves for whatever reason. Best of all, if Vallermoore's law enforcement tries to subpoena their business records, they'll get nowhere. So that's who'd be the actual provider of the services."

"Alternatively, you could do it yourself, but you'd be Suspect #1 since you obviously have a motive. It'd be better - for avoiding legal trouble, that is - to go the professional route. The IOPC is on the expensive side, but with them, you can sleep easy knowing that they will never, ever, backstab you by turning you into the police for trying to hire them. They can also get in and out of jails with ease, so you'd never have to worry about the guy getting out and killing you first."

[Vallermoore]

Jackhammer Mine

The CEOs eye panels darkened to the point where by themselves they would be too dark for a human to read by. Most ponies made better slaves then humans but now and then a really nasty one came along. "Take her away!" Already held in a metal hand, the pony could only wiggle and wail as she was taken out into the sunlight and to a glider-trailer. It stank horribly and the mare soon got to see why. It was filled with the bones and decomposing bodies of large numbers of earth ponies, unicorns and pegusai. Before they became slaves, the earth ponies and unicorns that died would normally have been buried in coffins in deep graves by their loving family. Pegusai on the other hand were normally burnt on pyres or dropped into special thunderclouds after death. Yet here they all were, rotting away in the open, covered only by flies that rose in a cloud as the Decepticon approached.

Whilst it might seem that Decepticons slaughtered pony slaves on a regular basis, it was a bit misleading. Whilst a few had been killed for trying to escape or disrespect to a Decepticon, nearly all were killed because they were near a death from old age or lung disease anyway. They had been told in most cases that they were being set free, before being despatched instead. "Your new journey belongs here," he said, and despatched the pony quickly, leaving her body to the insects.

The soul of the pony, a pony named Pretty One, found herself up to the belly in slightly warm and fresh water. There were a few islands with some sparse grass but none that stuck more then ten feet or so from the water. To her surprise, she found a watch on her leg so at least she could tell the time. In the distance were some mountains far away. "This place is not pony heaven, but it is not as hellish as it could be. No mines, no Decepticon overseers, no whips or chains or muzzles. And by now I am used to sleeping on the hard ground." Looking at the mountains, they had seemingly got closer. And she realised to her horror what she was looking at. A huge wave thousands of feet high, stretching from horizon to horizon. And as an earth pony, she would not be able to fly above it or use magic against it.

After several minutes of galloping, the huge wave, a wave big enough to knock over even a Decepticon who didn't fly above it , broke over her, drowning her and crushing her body. Only for her to wake unhurt in the same place as before with the watch on her leg, undamaged. She soon timed the waves and found they came every six hours. Every six hours , day or night,she would be crushed and drowned by the giant wave only to come back to life in the same place, her afterlife punishment for all the relationships that she had destroyed.

*****
Iron City

They got halfway through before a small group of bots led by an IOPC bot who had rejected Masherism blocked their way. Loyal Star internally readied his blasters ready for battle. "Well well, a false General with what looks like a huge amount of Energon. How much is in there? If you two let us have half of it we'll let you pass, otherwise we'll blast you and take it all." Loyal Star decided to try and use his magic to create sugar crystals in the engine of the leader. Such a thing if he could pull it off would turn the leader's fine engine to utterly useless scrap, ruining his well-armoured body. Although the IOPC bot didn't know it, Loyal Star's magic was already making sugar appear in the worst possible place, his fuel pump, and it would not have long to have an effect.
Loyal Star wanted to prove to Carjack that he was as ready to fight as any Decepticon who was worth his Energon.

*****
Vallermoore

"This sword dates from the time of the first Queen Yocasta, and the right shop would pay many thousands of ChingChings for it, as it belonged to a knight once.How would I reach the IOPC here? They would hardly agree to meet a random biological in Vallermoore after all. And, and thank you for being so kind even though you would not be paid for it. How can I show you my gratitude? You most likely saved my life there."

Her thanks was genuine. Fire Eater had been so helpful even though she was a stranger and a biological too.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
As the gang leader began to speak, General Carjack already had his onboard Military Intelligence file open, and by the time the first couple of words were complete, he'd found the specs for the armor he saw on the gang members' bodies. The file noted exactly how much power it took to blast through it, where its weak spots were, and known weaknesses in the manufacturing methods normally used to make it.

By the time the gang leader got to the words "with what looks," Carjack's blasters were aimed and firing at the requisite power level, aimed at the identified weak points. The target had just enough time to realize he was about to lose to transfer his mind away. His body clanged to the ground with a large melted-in gash through the head. Carjack would have activated his jammer, but since he was accompanied by Loyal Star - who didn't yet have any military training - he left them off in case the new Decepticon ended up needing to mind-transfer.

Systematically, Carjack switched his focus to the next-closest hostile bot, and took him down with the precision of someone who had killed many Decepticons before. By now, two of the remaining gang members had decided that going away quickly was a very good idea, and they were running off with the intention of gaining enough momentum for a jumping transformation into plane mode. One other, however, decided to stand and fight. If he could take down a real general, he'd be THE top dog in the city in terms of warrior cred - even better than Masher himself! While he still wouldn't be able to best the IOPC's business aspects, he'd be able to attract a huge gang to lead. Not only that, he would only be risking a body thanks to Carjack's decision - which seemed strange to him - not to use jamming.

As Carjack finished up blasting the prior bot, this risk-taking one opened fire, aiming at Carjack's head. To his dismay, he was hit with powerful blasts from Loyal Star, who had realized what Carjack was talking about when he'd mentioned that blasters were quicker than magic and therefore preferable in direct combat. Meanwhile, the attacker's blasts made solid contact with Carjack's head, only to be diffused by his many layers of mil-spec armor before they could get through to his boards. Carjack was about to turn and delete the guy when Loyal Star's blasts - which had been insufficient due to being from Standard Blasters, managed to make it through the enemy's Faraday cage layer. As soon as Loyal Star realized this, he fired his electrical magic and fried the enemy's circuits. The enemy screamed as current ripped through his wiring, and he mind-transferred just before it reached his mind-boards and personality chip. The body fell to the ground with a plume of acrid smoke coming from its wiring and circuit boards.

Carjack looked around, ready for more battle, but now the pedestrians stood far away. Some gave little nods, appreciating the skill they had witnessed and signaling that they did not want to challenge it. Others looked angry because they wanted to raid the cart but knew that they wouldn't stand a chance. Either way, nobody else who was around felt like being humiliated and losing their expensive bodies today.

"Looks like everyone else wants to stay alive," Carjack remarked, "so let's take the cart to the quartz company as soon as we can."

They picked up the tow lines and began to pull, and soon, were back at full speed. The cart glided along frictionlessly, so it was easy to move once the initial inertia was overcome. After they got a decent ways away, but before they turned the last corner before their destination, Carjack warned that there might be others who hadn't heard the news and might try something. He also noted that sugar really wouldn't kill an engine, at least not fast enough to do any good. "You use sodium silicate (liquid glass) to brick an engine within a few minutes," he said. "It's far more powerful than mere sugar, which often does nothing but lay down some annoying lacquer. But even that isn't fast enough in a battle scenario. In battle, just blast, or at least blast until you get past that Faraday layer and can fry them like you ended up doing."

When the rounded the corner, another gang did indeed march right up, intending to not only steal the Energon but also sell the bodies of what they figured would soon be dead bots. One began to raise his blasters - he wasn't going to give any warnings - but then he saw the melted mark on Carjack's head, and just below the cosmetic layer, the top-grade mil-spec armor that protected him - a grade typically provided to either generals or those who had served many terms as volunteers over and above their conscription requirements.

"Hold up, hold up!" He yelled to his comrades. "That's the REAL CARJACK! Mess with him at your peril!" This gang leader didn't wait to see what the others would do. He fled immediately, disappearing down an alley. After a slight pause, the others followed after him - all except for one, who saw this as his opportunity to show his skills and become the leader of that gang. This one also didn't recognize the armor grade like his boss did, so he wasn't quite convinced about the identification.

"So you wanna be another mark on my blasters, I see," Carjack taunted, pointing both of his at the potential challenger. The challenger hesitated, and for a moment, seemed to be considering raising his own weapons. Then his nerve left him, and he ran off after the other members of his gang.

The rest of the walk was uneventful, and the pair soon made it to the quartz production plant.

"Ah!" The salesbot said with joy upon seeing the two. "You made it! I know it's a real pain to try to get here with a big payment. Landing by yourself is easy enough, but the streets are just too narrow and crowded to land with a cart." As he said this, he spoke loudly out the door. He was very clearly trying to get the message through to DomIntel in hopes that they would pass it on to the municipal manager for the area.

"It certainly is," Carjack agreed. "But be careful. One day the IOPC will have to choose their allegiance, and if they pick wrong, the streets here will be 'widened' by Shockwave." This was a direct reference to his current alt mode - an orbital laser cannon.

"He can feel free to widen the streets of Iron City itself right now!" The salesbot said with anger. "Those guys are nothing but bad for business! If you were the average bot, they would have made off with that Energon and I'd get zero! Even as it is, I have to deal mostly with distributors who pay by renting small vaults and giving me the key. You're the first walk-in trade who actually came with the money in years. And now, I have to figure out how to get it out of here. But don't worry. I'll take care of it." He said, giving a grin as he lifted the cover.

"Ah, Supreme! Nice. Just a minute now..." He went into his office and returned with a small burning device and a Cubelet measure. "No offense, but we all know that High Generals like yourselves are the living examples of the Decepticon Way..." The salesbot proceeded to open each Kilocube and test-burn a sample from each one. "Perfect Supreme," he reported. "Perhaps even a little bit better! I think I can knock another 5% off the price."

Carjack smiled and agreed, and soon, the specs for the lab-produced quartz were confirmed. They would end up with two pieces, each 5 feet across, of top clarity. It'd take a week for the autoclaves of the plant to make the crystals grow from a solution of oxygenated dissolved silicon and liquid catalysts. While the process wasn't all that hard, the need for the crystals to grow large without any cracks or impurities had jacked up the price. It also required quite a bit of energy to heat such large autoclaves. Of course, there was also a huge commission involved, and Carjack knew it, but the salesbot didn't mention that explicitly lest it be used as a new negotiating point.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

"Oh, that IS a nice sword then," Fire Eater said, now being much more careful with it. "As for the IOPC, they'll deal with anyone who has the money. But if the sword is that valuable, it's best that you don't sell it first. Instead, give it as payment directly. Things that can't be easily counterfeited are always more valuable to a Decepticon who'll be going back to Cybertron soon."

"As for whether they'll deal with you? If you've got the money, they've got the time. It'd be different if they had to fly here special, but it's the IOPC. Just give me the final okay, and someone will be 'breaking in' soon and 'happen to hear your laments from the other room.'" Fire Eater made air quotes around the parts that would be used to hide the true nature of the visit. "Of course, these laments will mention how you wish your...now ex-husband, I presume? would die in that jail so you would never have to worry about him again. And they'll happen to be overheard by the 'guy' who 'steals' that sword from its display case that you forgot to lock."

"Needless to say, all of this code wouldn't be necessary on Cybertron. But here, there's 'law enforcement.'" He looked as though the concept was both disgusting and a pain. "So you'll have to make sure that you have plausible deniability in case of an investigation. Such things make simple business so difficult!"

Fire Eater paused and drank the Energon from the glass he'd been holding.

"As for what you can do for me, you mentioned converting." He smiled in a businesslike way that let her know he was expecting her to really do that. "And it'd be nice if, after the man meets whatever end the IOPC decides to give him, that you would tell everyone who likes you about how you wouldn't have been freed if it wasn't for the special blessings of Divine Leader Megatron, who understands the concept of true justice."

"As for your conversion, you can take the Oath now. We Decepticons do prefer to be paid in advance." He smiled again.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Loyal Star was not about to let any bot get away with attacking him or a Decepticon High General. Not only that, but he did not want the General thinking that Immigration had made a mistake in letting him in. Whilst his initial spell had not worked, he found that once his Standard Blasters had opened up his foe's Faraday Cage just a little, a blast of electrical magic did the job nicely, frying his foe alive.Although his foe would-only just-manage to mind transfer-he would have learned a painful lesson. Two of the bots had realised that it really was General Carjack and ran for their lives. The spectators, themselves tough even by Decepticon standards, backed off a little. None wanted to fall victim to the Genocider, even if if was a body rather then one's life at stake. Human or sapient pony generals had bodyguards. Decepticons of Carjack's level didn't need them. They would blast any foes who dared to attack them themselves.

A second gang appeared but saw the exposed inner armour of General Carjack, and Loyal Star smirked as they ran for their lives. Every bot knew what Carjack was capable of doing and logic rather then fear made them run. One nearly did battle but decided at the last moment how stupid that would be. They got to their destination without more trouble and with the Cubes intact and unrobbed. The sales bot was very happy to see them. It would take a week but soon a perfect scrying crystal would be made and Carjack could learn something new that he didn't know before. Loyal Star was feeling perfectly content.
**********
Vallermoore

Fire Eater loosened his grip on the sword a bit. This was a true antique. When he asked the woman to convert to Megatronism and gave her a copy of the Oath on metal paper, she did so willingly and happily. For a second only, the lights of the temple went off and then back on again. As things turned out, the woman would be a faithful Megatronist for the rest of her life, and when some day death would reach her, it would be the Megatronist afterlife where her soul would end up. Fire Eater smiled. One thing he shared with the priests of other religions-joy when a new believer joined. Megatronism was just that tiny bit stronger for it.

She followed his advice, and within only hours of the sword being in IOPC hands, her husband would be found dead in his cell. From the look of him, it seemed that he had been battered and beaten to death with hammers. The sword itself would make a nice profit which would itself end up converted to oil and from there to Energon, in which form it would enter the Cybertronian economy.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

Unlike the trip in, getting out of the area was easy for Carjack and Loyal Star. All they needed to do to ensure a safe journey was leave the now-empty cart's top down so everyone could see that there was nothing inside. Soon, they had dropped the cart off at the vault complex.

"You've done very well," Carjack said. "And you're a decent fighter already. I'll look forward to your stint in my wider platoon. As for now, I'm sure you'll be able to make some use of what I told you. I'm going to go back to my place now, but when the crystals are done, we'll meet up again. Then we can fly right to the factory and just land at the door since we won't have any cart to deal with."

~~~~~~~~~~~

As Carjack was saying this, he had been picking up Megatron's energy. Clearly the Leader had been watching and waiting for something...

Almost immediately, the general's suspicions were confirmed as his communicator went off. Soon, he was at the Megatron Mansion, where he would learn of the Decepticon Leader's grandest desires.

It didn't take long to brief Carjack on what had happened with the scout. In fact, Carjack quickly surmised the exact result, though he was dismayed that the scout could actually be hacked by "yo-yos" so quickly. "He needs the High Frequency [high-alignment psychic energy]," Carjack pronounced immediately, without pre-considering what Megatron's response might be. "And a huge psychic jamming shield to block those hack attempts. Even then, hanging around there after seeing that entry hasn't been granted falls in the category of Very Bad Idea."

"The thing is, all of those evil gits find out the general location of a portal to Heaven and then go there hoping to sneak in when an authorized person goes through. But from their perspective, it never does open, or perhaps they see it immediately close when they get near. Either way, they don't get in - and they end up deciding to attack anyone who comes around and isn't one of them. They sometimes attack each other, too - unlike what religions like Christianity say, there are many factions of evil entities and some of them are quite happy to mess with the other ones."

"And how does one get this 'high frequency?'" Megatron asked.

"You're not going to like this, I don't think. But the easiest way to get that frequency is to be good. Not fake-good like the Autobots, either. The real thing. However, it takes more than just doing good - plenty of very evil entities will 'do good' as a set-up for the evil they're actually planning. But since they're trying to work a connive, their frequency stays low. I suppose what's needed could be best described as a lack of malice. However, it is possible to raise it by willpower, to a point..."

"You've got a script for that!" Megatron said with a forebodingly greedy grin. He knew that such experience would naturally have resulted in practicing in order to perfect the art, and therefore, the natural generation of Code to handle the process. Such learned and practice-refined Code could be isolated and turned into an installable file - many Decepticon Lines passed on Line-specific knowledge to the next generation this way, and some educational institutes made their money by selling what were originally someone's naturally developed event-specific handling programs.

Carjack hesitated. He didn't want to fork over any of his proprietary interdimensional activity handlers! Megatron was right, though - there was, indeed, a script for precisely that very thing always running in the background of Carjack's system.

"I'll get right to the point. A million Cubes of Supreme."
"I wouldn't fork up that script for a billion Cubes of it. After all, I have a mint of my own. Plus, the Code only goes so far. If you're too evil, it fails. And trying to go kick Yahweh's ass is..."

"It is the natural thing for anyone who has sense and stands a chance! There's nothing wrong with it at all. You've just heard a bunch of propaganda from churches!" Megatron snapped. "This guy has a monopoly over some areas and major dominance over others. You know as well as I do that the way to handle that is to go blast the monopolist and make a market opening! Think about it: What would you do if you'd never heard any propaganda from him? Wouldn't you go blast him, like we did the gods of Equitago?"

It was true that Carjack hadn't had the slightest of qualms about blasting through Equitago's godly realm, and in fact, had thought it was cool.

After a pause, Megatron said, "10 billion Cubes of Supreme. It's my final offer." As he said this, his own energy signature changed without him even knowing it. But suddenly, Carjack agreed. He had picked up that if the "final offer" wasn't accepted, he was very likely to either have it hacked out of him for zero Cubes or have to delete it to prevent that. And if he deleted it, he'd be open to attack. Though he had enough backup defenses to not immediately end up like the scout did, it'd be a situation that was far from ideal.

Immediately, Megatron pulled a blank Save Disk out of his desk and handed it over with a grin. Reluctantly, Carjack transferred just that one routine - the one for controlling the alignment of one's own energy - over to it and thrust it back. In exchange, he was given control of multiple vaults in Megatron's complex.

"As a consolation bonus, I'll get rid of that cap you speak of. That's some sort of natural limitation; many religious texts speak of such an effect. But if it has to do with physics or Code - even currently-unknown aspects of it - it can and will be defeated." Megatron said confidently. Considering that his Bureau of Paranormal Research had figured out how to artificially open portals into aetherial places, his confidence was likely not misplaced, at least when it came to this.

"Remember," Carjack warned, "That tech isn't only good for you. It's also good for that damned rebel Satan, all of his minions, and every other evil thing out there! If a capless version leaks, the universe will find that it no longer has a giant natural advantage against entities that literally want to obliterate the entire thing just because God made it. And you and me are part of the universe in question!"

Megatron now held the disk as if it contained nuke codes. "I see. I'll crack that cap myself then, rather than send it over to the BPR. My scout did report all sorts of bribe attempts, and I'd rather not have a multi-front war going on because someone didn't do his due diligence..."

"Now," Megatron went on. "What about the overall strategy?"

To that, Carjack looked quite uncomfortable, and immediately expressed his concerns. If the religions were correct, the Coder of the Biologicals was also responsible for the creation of all of the normally-inanimate material in the universe, "including the Metal you're made of." This could logically present a massive problem in the case of a war.

"That would be true IF he was known for reacting like a proper Decepticon or even a biological," Megatron countered. "But according to the massive Intelligence file I've gotten, he is known for things like NOT blasting that woman who got prayers booted from the schools of old Earth. She had challenged him directly to blast her with lightning, and nothing happened. Of course, she took that as proof of the correctness of her atheism rather than as merciful restraint on Yahweh's part. Such events, or lack of them, are known in all places!"

"Yeah, but she didn't get right up in his grill with a fusion cannon! You want to back him into a wall so he has to either fight or die! I don't think he's going to pick 'die!'"

"His own book has an account where some puny humant beat him at wrestling. (Genesis 32:22-32) I certainly should have nothing to worry about!" Megatron noted.

"That story goes on to say that he then pwned Jacob just by touching him, showing that he could have done so all along," Carjack countered. "I'm telling you - this isn't going to be like some quick romp over a primitive nation!"

Now, Megatron was getting angry, and his engine started growling. "If he was all that, then how are there other gods? How is it that I have dominion over the souls all who are dedicated to me, even if they had declared to the competition beforehand? I say that the majority of what you've read is propaganda of the weakest order! Now: I ORDER you to give me your best plan for removing this monopolist and replacing him with me!"

Carjack wanted zero part of this, but he also wanted zero part of a slow swim in the Main Foundry followed by thousands of years of whatever else Megatron would come up with.

"Verified history shows that the Abrahamic religions have spread by the sword," Carjack noted. "They like to talk of peace now, but each one of them actually got its strength through war and THEN switched to peace only when they encountered an enemy that they couldn't defeat and an equilibrium was reached right in the temporal realm. So, if it was me, I wouldn't go and try to attack Heaven. I'd invade the other planets and convert them to Megatonism at blaster-point."

"In other words, what we planned to do already, only with a religious component attached?! Not engage Yahweh directly at all?! What the slag kind of a plan is that!"

"It's the same plan that made that green area as big as it is."

Megatron checked his foreign history files, and to his surprise, found it to be true. Almost all of the green area used to be something else, and then invaders came and spread Christianity, Islam, and various other sects to those areas. When planets weren't entirely dedicated to one god, a closer look at their histories showed that it was because other, non-Yahweh nations had big armies of their own that had successfully repelled crusades and army-sized jihads or that were powerful enough to deter such actions to begin with.

"I see~! You may go now. I will give this serious consideration."

Carjack left quickly, realizing that he had come close to being melted down for not being very on board with Megatron's goal. His next stop was the vault complex; even though he hadn't wanted to do the deal, 10 billion Cubes of Supreme was nothing to sneeze at. Plus, Megatron wouldn't think of it as a rebuke if Carjack refused the money from the forced transaction. Instead, he'd likely demote him for showing an astounding lack of sense!

Soon enough, the relevant vaults were all rekeyed so only Carjack's engine pattern could open them. What Megatron didn't know was that to Carjack, the loot would be worth much more than it would to the average person. Soon enough, the original Energon in the Cubes would be spent. Then, the empty, genuine Megatron Energon containers would be refilled with biofuel over and over again.

~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

The Oath of Conversion was simple and short. "I, [name], hereby renounce my old religion(s) and dedicate myself to Megatronism and my soul to Divine Leader Megatron," it read. Fire Eater smiled as he heard it read off of the foil-paper, and immediately, both of them felt a surge of energizing power as Megatron's unconscious religion-administration program sent his blessings.

~~~~~~~~~~~

At the jail, officials immediately reviewed the video footage of the man's cell. They saw a huge, shaven-headed prisoner pick the lock, enter, and beat the man with what appeared to be his fists while wearing brass knuckles. However, when they tried to identify him, they found that they had no prisoners matching that description. In fact, there was nobody on the property matching that description!

During the investigation meeting, all of the guards present did their best to try to place him or think of anything strange they might have seen. The only one absent was a weedy little guy, who had arrived the day before as a new hire but then quit halfway through his shift saying that this sort of environment was "too much" for him.

All of the hiring records on him were in order. There was no reason to suspect that he never really worked there at all, or that before he had arrived, he had remotely installed a program into the CCTV system that automatically replaced his image with a hyper-realistic CGI of a big, bald prisoner once he entered the right cell block.

Even if they did somehow realize that his image disappeared from the screen in the prior one and never reappeared, it was too late to catch him now. Before the meeting even ended, he had sold the sword, bought oil with the money, and headed off to Cybertron. As "his plane" entered outer space and became surrounded with swirling blue lights, he waved down toward the First Megatronist Temple with his android body.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

General Carjack was most certainly not a bot who was in any way frightened of or against war and normally he enjoyed it. But he had a suspicion that Yahweh was not a relatively weak immortal being, like Celestia and Luna or the gods and goddesses of Equitago, but one with much more power and legions of angels to call upon, which as holy beings could wound and even kill Decepticons. Whilst he was almost certain Megatron could ultimately defeat Yahweh, it might need a war on the same scale of the Cybertronian Great War to do so. At the worst, if Yahweh did have enough power, he might seriously damage the Metal Planet. If a mere pony alicorn could send a black hole sweeping towards Cybertron, who knew what a giant god on the level of Yahweh might do? It was far better to, by a mixture of persuasion on some planets and force on others, get them to turn Megatronist like Vallermoore was slowly but surely doing, and thus weaken Yahweh indirectly. If they could weaken the other religions enough, they would go into death spirals and their gods and goddesses would weaken too until they could just be hunted down and blasted directly. But taking on Yahweh directly was not the best idea right now. And using the Ignore Cannon Array would protect Cybertron, but at the same time make it impossible to take on Yahweh. The Ignore Cannon Array was a superb defensive weapon, but not designed for attack.
******
Since Loyal Star's connive earlier had gained him enough Energon so he didn't have to raid for the moment, he decided to buy some fun computer games from the proper store and in the proper packaging. He wanted to have a bit of fun enjoying himself at home. He also would buy at least one spare body and some tools. Unlike MasterBlaster, he had no intention of Coding a new Decepticon anytime soon. After his first military conscription stint was completed, he had a Priestly career very much in mind. One thing that had not changed was that he was still religious, it was just that his object of worship had changed, from an alicorn to a true God. And coding a new Decepticon would get in the way of serving Megatronism. He looked forward to showing General Carjack how to use scrying. When it was time to serve in the Military, Carjack would want his services.

*****
MasterBlaster, having brought, virus checked and installed all the needed AEDPs on raiding and how to become the leader of his own gang, was now studying the needed information. He was determined to get his own gang together, in a way that would not get him outright killed or seriously conned, and that was the accepted way to do so. A thought did come into his mind boards of buying a Decepticon slave or two, and making them raid with him, but whilst a quick check on his treason file said it was legal, he decided that it must be seriously against Decepticon tradition to do that, and/or there was a very good reason why Decepticons who were rich enough preferred to raid with willing bots rather then with enslaved ones. And there were certain Decepticon traditions, that if broken could end up with angry vigilantes coming after one with wrenches. Which was very much a fate that he wanted to avoid.

*****
Vallermoore

"That felt-amazing. My earlier god never, ever, sent me any sign that He knew I existed at all. I'm Sara, by the way," the woman said to Fire Eater, whose eyes were a nice , happy, red colour.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

Fire Eater smiled at the remark, and then said "Divine Leader Megatron prefers to make sure that he's known, and to make sure that followers of Megatronism have a reason to stay that way other than 'that's what my parents were.' He also has said explicitly that no one shall wonder whether or not he exists. One of the best ways to cover all of these goals is to respond in obvious ways when key events occur. He doesn't give a highly-detectable response to every single event, but he does want to make sure that, as he has put it, 'there are no atheists' in areas where he is active. He sees the very existence of atheism as a failing of the other religions."

"Along with that feeling of power, which will fade after a few days, you'll have an ongoing blessing that will make life a bit easier for you. Just be warned that it doesn't make you invincible or ensure success. Think of it more like lowering the difficulty level of life by about 10%. As you learn more about the Decepticon Way, you'll start to see ways you can use that to your great advantage."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

MasterBlaster's AEDP on forming a gang gave two main pathways to getting the first members. One was to find an existing gang that had a weak leader, and then, during the initial rank-determining duels, best all of the members including that leader. Then, it was advised to start rolling political-style spin about how its members should follow the new guy instead of the old one. However, it warned that loyalty was often not quite so easily switched. It suggested that if this method was used, the target gang should be one that was known for sure to be dissatisfied with its current leader.

The other method was to go to the lower-class areas - but not 100% ghettified ones - and simply put the word out that a new gang was forming. The AEDP warned that the first ones to sign up for this would likely be losers who needed a significant investment to be made before they'd stand much of a chance. They'd likely need better armor and at least a pack or two of Raiding Tactics and Strategy to be purchased for them. However, since they wouldn't need official certificates for those skills, it would be possible to just buy one copy of the RT&S AEDPs, crack their DRMs, and then make more copies to distribute. With this method, the biggest danger was that some of the new gang members would take the upgrades and disappear. MasterBlaster's AEDP said it was a good idea to expect a 40-60% disappearance rate, but noted that with good salesmanship and political spinmanship, this rate could be lowered.

Once a few gang members were attracted, the next step would be to go on a successful raid. "New gang members tend to want to raid big targets," it warned, "but it's best to start with sure-win destinations. It is up to the gang leader to convince the others that he should remain the leader while taking them to primitive lands where there will be no effective resistance. Only after loot, experience, and further upgrades are attained should the new gang attempt to strike a location that has serious anti-air or anti-tank capabilities."

~~~~~~~~~~

Megatron Mansion

Leader Megatron looked over a new map. This one was of a nearby part of the universe and showed the surface of a specific planet. The displayed world wasn't the most primitive ever, but it was still primitive by Decepticon standards: It was still using radio, TV was in its infancy, and while cars had replaced the local quadruped, they were of a level akin to Earth's cars from the 1930s. A green overlay showed its religious affiliation.

Next, he read the sheaf of foil-papers that had been delivered by ForIntel. According to these excerpts from the master file for the planet, this world was a strict theocracy following a religion it called Saviorism. The file noted that despite the difference in the naming, the religion's description of its god and its most-taught tenets qualified it as a Yahweh world. This was corroborated by the Bureau of Paranormal Research, which had positively identified the energy signatures at its main cathedral as being extremely similar to those of The Vatican of Earth.

Megatron picked up his communicator and connected to his Main Temple. One thousand missionaries were to be sent there in full regalia to announce the coming of a new god, perform some minor miracles - and test both the response of the theocratic government as well as any supernatural responses that may occur.

The Megatronist missionaries, unlike the priests, did not have a constant swirl of colors to dazzle the people with. They did, however, have a notable glow of energy that would make the people see that they weren't the usual boring machines the planet made on its own. They also had plenty of armor hidden under their cosmetic outer panels - Megatron figured that the theocracy would soon try to execute them for blasphemy, especially since they would be saying that Megatron was the better god, so he made sure they were prepared!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Tarantos

Popa, the highest priest on this planet, paced around nervously. For the last week or so, several people had begun to prophesy on the streetcorners with a new and heretical message. They warned of "deceivers from the sky" who would speak of a world where "good was bad" and "meekness was weakness." Most disturbingly, they claimed that these visitors would corrupt many believers and take their souls under a new dominion. It was this last claim that was heretical, and the government had arrested all of those speaking it. Yet, more prophets continued to appear, all with a fervor which had only been spoken of in scripture - until now.

Suddenly, his thoughts were broken by shouting from outside his very window. "The time of the Apocalypse has begun!" Someone yelled. "Resist, resist the beings from the sky, for they forget who created the materials they are made from! They have forgotten who created the laws of physics that allow them to exist! Resist, resist! Save yourselves from damnation! Prepare yourselves, for many will be martyred by the Red Eyed Beasts! Many others will give up their hominity to become as them! Remember that your soul belongs to the Savior in the end!"

This jarred the Popa, who had never before seen or heard anything like this phenomenon. Clearly, something big was happening. Were these real prophets? Was this the start of the Great Tribulation spoken of in the Sacred Scriptures?

"It can't be," he thought to himself. "The Scriptures say that the End Times will be marked by the appearance of things that are alive, but not alive. But that refers to the undead, not some kind of things that come in from the sky or space!" He reasoned, missing the message that had actually been clearly laid out. "And this stuff about Red Eyed Beasts, what is that! The closest scripture says we are to beware of those whose eyes glow with the energy of lightning!" Again, he had missed the point. He and those before him had interpreted that to mean that the eyes would look like they contained lightning, and glow with a strange white energy. The scriptures, unknown to them, were actually referring to the fact that electricity powered the eye-lights of the impending invaders. Finally, he took the warning about many giving up their hominity to refer to a psychological state - "becoming as beasts" - rather than realizing that the current prophecies referred to the literal act of being mind-transferred from a human body to a Decepticon one.

There was one thing the Popa didn't want to think about. The Scriptures had said that the martyrs would be rewarded in the afterlife. This meant that there would be at least some - and judging by the tone of the overall original prophecy, there would be many.

All of these questions were running through the Popa's mind when an acolyte rushed into his office.

"Sir, sir! The sky is shining with thousands of weird blue lights!"

Operation Market Share Expansion had begun.

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

In just a few days, the scrying crystals would be ready. It was almost unheard of for natural quartz to grow to the 10-foot-wide size Carjack and Loyal Star had ordered, so even at the price he'd paid, it was a deal compared to what it'd cost to fly to one of the few planets where it was naturally found and dig it up.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

After having read his new AEDP thoroughly, MasterBlaster decided to go to the shop called The Strength of Cybertron and buy a new body. A very tough body, with much stronger armour and better fighting capacity, and better mind boards as well and blasters. Then if need be he would go to Blaze for extra strong blasters, and after all that spending, he would need to get a gang together and raid to avoid running out of Energon. First he decided to window shop and pick out a body. That was quite common. Window shopping when it came to very big purchases was good because that way a bot could pick something out without worrying about being mugged or worse by other bots. With small purchases, it was rarely worth it for a bot to attack another one just to get a few Cubes. Even if he won the costs of repair would eat up anything that he gained from the encounter. But when it was a case of millions of Cubes to be gained, it suddenly made a violent robbery worth it. Because of this, it was common when making an expensive purchase to look first and pick something out and then return as soon as possible with the Cubes to buy the object in question.

He entered The Strength of Cybertron and said "I'm looking for a nice strong body in the three to four and a half million Cubes range please. I'm planning to become a raid gang leader and so the body of mine that I have now is not good enough for that. I need one strong enough and well armed enough to defeat other raid gang leaders so I have a chance of taking over an existing gang. Once you have helped me pick one out I will go and come back with the needed Cubes and then buy it and mind transfer."

*****
Vallermoore

"If the other gods and goddesses had done the same thing, they would not be losing their worshippers so quickly. I fully intend to learn more about the Decepticon Way and make it work for me. What happens if a loyal Megatronist who has done the right things dies in a biological body? Do they have their own section of the afterlife so the robots there don't enslave them? It would be a pity to be a good Megatronist only to be enslaved in the afterlife because I died as a biological. Of course, I might one day become a Decepticon but not all biological Megatronists can either pass the tests or want to go quite that far."

*****
Tarantos

The reaction to the arrival of robots from space was mixed. Some humans surrendered on the spot. Unless Megatron ordered otherwise, they would most likely end up as slaves. A very few started to worship the bots, clearly possible Megatronists-or just traitors to their own state; their status was unclear for now. Most just scattered in terror from the streets. Guns of all kinds were banned from the hands of ordinary citizens here, unlike Vallermoore. Unusually, swords of one type were allowed, but only one human was stupid or crazy enough to attack a bot with a sword and he was just stepped on. Most humans just fled for their lives. Meanwhile the Popa Guards were ordered out, and they did have weapons capable of doing harm to Decepticons, but waited for orders on what to do. Normally the raid gangs would go in first and blast everybody and everything, followed by the Decepticon Military. But killing large numbers of biologicals and enslaving the rest was not going to produce any new true Megatronists. An uneasy silence happened as the bots and the few humans who were not panicking stared at each other.

[Victorious Decepticons]

The Strength of Cybertron

The salesbot was quite eager to help when he heard how many million Cubes the customer was willing to spend. Immediately, he began to show him some of their fine, but not quite the finest, stock. There was one body that was so built up it was like a tank on two feet, but its size and weight made it not so maneuverable in the air. "That's no problem with this body, though. Anti-SAM panels are part of the package, so it won't matter much that you won't be able to dodge many of them."

Next, there was a body with slightly less armor but better maneuverability. "This one takes a bit less fuel to run, but its main benefit is that it won't get hit with SAMs as often," the bot said while using his hand to highlight its sleek, straight lines.

"And then there are these bombers here," he said as he led MasterBlaster to another area of the shop. Here, the bodies looked much like those preferred by Scroungers, only even more built up. "Like the other highly-armored ones, they don't dodge as well as the one you're using. However, their strength is in their ability to bomb things. The bomb bay can hold 5 standard-ordnance explosive munitions. Up on the arms, as you can see, you also have two missiles on each side nestled next to the double set of mil-spec blasters. These missiles are capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting, though most users of this body design use them only for air-to-ground and use their blasters for air-to-air combat. The entire external weapons rack can be swiveled, which is important with bomber bodies since it takes a while to circle the entire body around while flying."

Since MasterBlaster hadn't mentioned a desire for mind-board expansion space, the salesbot hadn't noted it in his pitch or thought to give it any priority. The bodies he had shown only had room for the standard configuration, which allowed for a bit of upgrading but nothing all that special. To add another board or two, which would create attachment space for many more CPUs and RAM chips, the shop would have to customize the bodies to have more internal board bays.

"There's one thing we should discuss before you choose one," the salesbot said, "and that's payment. When that much money is involved, it's best for you to put the payment in a new vault and then have one of us come to it. Then you rekey it over and come back here for your new body. That makes it so you don't have to try to get millions of Cubes through the streets safely. This area may be good, but no area is so good that nobody will try to raid that much money. Of course, that does mean that you need to trust that we'll hand over the body, but you can ask anyone who's dealt with us and they'll tell you that the Strength of Cybertron has never stiffed a customer. There's also the fact that our shop is not a crater, nor has anyone besides The Body Shop tried to make it into one."

~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

"Biological Megatronists, if they die, are not automatically enslaved. Your performance as a Megatronist is examined and your realm is determined accordingly." Fire Eater explained. "The one thing you don't want to do is die as an employee or a slave. That is considered willing acceptance of the slave rank, and that will result in you retaining that rank after death. You are to find a way to make money that doesn't involve blind obedience to someone else's orders. And, if you are threatened with enslavement in this life, you are to fight to the death to avoid it even against insurmountable odds. Failing that, you are to commit suicide to avoid slavery if there is no other way out of it. A human once said, 'it is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.' We firmly agree. This is why no Decepticon will stand for being enslaved. Any Decepticon slaves that exist are hacked so that they cannot either fight or kill themselves."

"That will allow you to have a chance of avoiding enslavement in the afterlife. However, the Neutral Realm, for those who were loyal Megatronists but weren't exemplary, does involve an extended term of what amounts to enslavement for those who end up there. If one is above average, but still not stellar, she may end up as an overseer or manager of this realm. Alas...not wanting to go 'that far' - which is to say, not wanting to become a Decepticon - is considered acceptance of mediocrity and it is, indeed, a fast ticket to this place. You would have to be VERY highly-accomplished as a Megatronist to avoid ending up there if you don't try to rise above your biological frailty at some point. According to the latest Divine Bulletin - " Fire Eater pulled out a newsletter made of foil-papers - "the last human to avoid it sacrificed many living souls to the Divine Leader. His reward was to avoid the Neutral Realm, and instead, end up with a position as a Punisher in the Realm of Punishment. That realm is basically a Hell or Jahannam, with the experience tailor-made for each individual condemned, but those who are suited to be Punishers often consider it to be a heaven - for them, that is. The ones who are being punished obviously greatly regret ending up there."

"But I wouldn't worry TOO much about ending up in the Neutral Realm. Switching from a biological body seems like a big step to younger people, I've noticed. However, once you're old enough to be considered truly elderly, your opinion is likely to change." Fire Eater reached into the file cabinet and pulled out a thick folder. "This book contains the signatures of those who have signed up for the Immigration Track. Take a look." She read some of the names in the book, and noticed that ages were printed next to them. Though not all of them were senior citizens, there was a definite trend toward older people signing on. "Once that body of yours shows its true nature as being frail and prone to breakdowns, I'm sure you'll become more eager to experience the strength and solidity of proper metal. Of course, Divine Leader Megatron will not be nearly as impressed if you wait until you're at death's door to transfer. There is also the fact that sometimes, people get killed by accidents, early breakdowns, or flukes...um, by 'flukes,' I mean if someone like your ex had been a little faster with that sword. So you're taking a chance if you wait too long. You do know that if you were made of metal when he had come after you, you could have turned around and mashed that sword like a wad of paper, right?" Fire Eater grinned. "There are a lot of temporal benefits to using a body that's outright made for war, even if you're never in an armed international conflict."

"All that said, as the name implies, the Neutral Realm isn't the worst possible place to end up. There are more things to know in order to avoid the Realm of Punishment, which is where the truly condemned go. You must never commit activities against Megatronism, the Decepticon people, or, of course, our Divine Leader. Note, however, that it IS quite permissible to lie about your religion in order to avoid being on the bad side of pogroms, genocides, or other such things. Such enemies can find out that you're a Megatronist by surprise - when you start killing them. And, of course, you must not violate the key tenets of Megatronism."

"Another thing to note is that Divine Leader Megatron does not appreciate martyrs," Fire Eater went on. "As he says, it's simple logic that if YOU die, that means that some enemy won. Even if you suicide-bombed and killed many of them, in doing so, you've saved the enemy the trouble of having to kill you and therefore granted them a score of one instead of the zero they should have had. Enemies are never to score. If you do end up in a situation that may result in your martyrdom, you are to die fighting at your full capacity. Going meekly to your doom will lead only to the Realm of Punishment."

"Many followers end up in the Neutral Realm. Here, the standard condition is to be stuck as a robotic arm or similar machine and have to make parts for those in the best realm. This is where people go if they die in a mediocre way or by some sort of stupid mistake. If you do the regular biological thing, which is to work most of your life away for someone else's benefit and then die in obscurity, you go here for sure. It is a form of enslavement, though it's still better than what you'd get in the Realm of Punishment. Avoid this by proving your superiority over your fellow species-mates and by avoiding death in inglorious circumstances. Also, even if you end up in the Neutral Realm, know that our Divine Leader doesn't like truly eternal punishments. It is his hope that Neutrallers will, after having been bored for so long, get motivated to do something greater at some point. When and how, alas, remains known to him alone."

"All in all, if you want to reach the best realm, you want to be an exemplary practitioner of the Decepticon Way. That does include becoming a Decepticon at some point. Thinking that it's 'too much' will automatically exclude you from the top echelons..."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Tarantos

The people were surprised when the newly-arrived robots didn't group up in a single spot, but instead, spread out across the planet. Then, after taking up positions in highly-obvious places, they began to preach. They spoke of a new religion, where the god of it valued strength, helped with revenge, gave blessings that couldn't be mistaken for coincidence, and where death was considered an abomination rather than an inevitable or even desired occurrence. "Divine Leader Megatron has provided for the chance of an afterlife," they said, "but it is his wish that his followers never see it!"

As the people heard this, there was no doubt: According to the tenets of Saviorism, the robots spoke both heresy and blasphemy! Many booed and threw garbage at the missionaries, testing their patience. Others yelled back "Blasphemy!" and tried to shout down their preaching. This didn't work because the missionaries had been outfitted with loudspeakers behind their Decepticon Seals, so they were able to out-shout even a medium-sized group of hecklers just by turning up the volume.

While this went on, a few of the people just stood back away from the crowds of naysayers. They were listening to the Megatronists' message while being smart enough not to get caught up in any violence that could erupt.

In the capital, the Popa Guards heard what the Megatronists in the area were saying and didn't need to wait for further orders. They got out their weapons, intending to shut off this heretical speech in a very permanent way. By the time this happened, only three of the missionaries were in close range - the rest were all over Tarantos, and in most places, only local police were around to try to interfere.