An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Vallermoore]

The Strength of Cybertron

MasterBlaster nodded. That made a great deal of sense. After all, it was no good for the shop if he got mugged or outright killed and the Energon taken. "That hugely built up body with all that strong armour and those highly useful anti-SAM panels, I would like to buy that one please. If you put it aside for me, I'll go and buy a vault and get the Energon placed inside it, and then come back to you." He went and did just that, buying a vault very close to his own and transferring the Energon to it without incident. Then he went to the shop to inform them of it. The sales bot was right-shops with a history of scamming their customers tended to be looted and blown up pretty quickly. As for the attempt by the Body Shop, that was just a normal part of doing business in the Empire of Victorious Decepticons. He told them all was ready and asked one of them to follow him to the vault,so they could check all was well and the handover and engine keying could take place. He decided that adding more mind boards could come later.

**********
Vallermoore

Here, in the private sanctum of Fire Eater, where she knew the police would not be listening in, she asked "Does a human have to have committed several crimes on their own planet without being caught, to be accepted by the Immigration Ministry? Or is it possible to be accepted without that? I don't want to mess up and be rejected at the start, as then I could never become a Decepticon." She felt safe as she asked such things. Although she was next to one of the most feared and least trustworthy robotic life forms in the universe, she knew this subject was not one that Fire Eater would lie about. Sending the wrong people who would fail their written test would hardly be a help to the Empire after all. "And how does one even get to Cybertron anyway? It must be really far from here."

Tarantos

Before they headed to the planet, Megatron himself had given the missionaries special instructions. "The place where you are going, like ours, only tolerates one religion, and like ours, it has the biological equivalent of Domintel, the Holy Inquisition, to enforce it. The biologicals here have been brought up rigidly to believe in their God. So most of them are not at first going to convert straight away, those that do are likely cowards or worse. Indeed, some will shout you down, some will even throw fruit and stones at you. Normally the response would be to blast them,but if you do that at this stage, everyone will either be too scared to listen to you or think you are evil incarnate. Strange as it may seem, if what is being thrown would do no damage or only a few scratches and dents, hold your fire."

"No one is asking you to martyr yourselves-if guns or heavy weapons come out or any idiot does something like attack you with a sword, you can retaliate according to our way and/or retreat if the alternative would mean you lose a body or worse. But it is your voice chips that will win here, not your blasters. If we can get just 20% of the population to join Megatronism, we will have lit a fire that they cannot put out, and their repression will only fuel the flames and weaken them further. When the time is right, we will be welcomed as liberators and the whole planet will go Megatronist. Let's fly there and bust up their weak religion."

After the initial panic was over, great crowds came out to see these visitors. When they started preaching, as they had been warned, they at first got a hostile reception, and got fruit and stones hurled at them in many places. Many must have been sorely tempted to open fire on these insolent biologicals, but they remembered the words of their God to show restraint. And they were rewarded when in the poor areas in particular and some of the middle class areas too, more and more started agreeing with them and what they had to say. Even in some of the richer areas, there were a few early converts. Although armed with pistols the police and the Inquisition rarely tried to intervene. In the centre of the capital of Holyopolis, it was another thing entirely. The Popa Guards had weapons capable of doing damage and we're ready to use them. One Priest stayed a little too long and lost a body, and the other two flew somewhere else, but not before blasting and killing many Holy Guards.

Megatron pictured the religious affiliation of the planet-once it was a dark green , but now there were red sparks all over it. The fact that the Inquisition did not try and shoot at his Priests showed them to be badly armed, cowards, or both. On Cybertron Domintel would be amongst the first bots to blast at any other religion's priests trying to take over. Here and there some of the planet's priests tried to argue back, but very few had much success. The fire had been lit.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Heaven

The great glow of powerful white energy blocked the view of those looking toward its source, but several feet from that source, several small forms could be seen bowing, walking around, coming, and going. To the right (as seen from the viewpoint of the Source), another source of bright energy was present, though it was clear that the main glow was at center stage.

Suddenly, another glowing being burst in, agitated. He quickly ran up to the brightest light, bowed deeply, and then began to speak. "Most Holy One, what are we to do about Tarantos? Weeds have sprouted all over, and threaten to contaminate Your creation there. Its Popa Guards are also losing faith quickly, having seen several of their comrades blasted to ashes before their eyes. Shall we send out the Heavenly Throng to cleanse the land of the rebellious?"

A hand clearly rose from within the energy field.

"It is my decree that life decide its own way, and always has been," the strong, yet peaceful, voice came. "In time, they will see the error of this being and his Way. When they can't go to the stores without risking being mugged, they will realize that crime has soared because of the failure of the faith of their society, and return. Not only that, they are well aware that an afterlife separated from Me is not fun..."

"But Sir! They are already being led astray by criminal Popas who say that more tithes can get them into Heaven regardless of deeds. This Megatron person, he will only make matters worse! Before long, the people won't even know who You are, or at least, not the REAL You. If we don't send the Heavenly Throng soon, the~~"

"And those who retain their faith shall be greatly rewarded in the afterlife. Do not worry. Temporal life is fleeting. All will be set straight on the day that they stand before Me."

The angel appeared to be very frustrated. He clearly thought that a visit by Heaven's military forces, ASAP, was the best thing to arrange.

"But Sir!" He protested again. "With the Heavenly Throng, we could not only secure Tarantos, but the entire Decepticon Empire! When the robots saw that we are the Strong, they'd dump Megatron like cold slag."

A chuckle came. "They'd dump him until the Major Prophet I'd send to Cybertron told them to 'turn the other cheek.' And then they would declare war on us all, fully believing that we were devils out to destroy them all. That's before my Prophet even told them that all creatures come from the same Creator, and that they should be stewards of the rest of Creation rather than dominators."

"Now wait a minute," the angel continued to argue. "You didn't have any trouble kicking Satan out for wanting to be the boss of everything, or banning Iblis for refusing to bow to humans. What makes Megatron so special?!?"

"Megatron is already out." Came the simple answer. "In fact, he was never in this realm. And he is already mortal, subject to the laws of physics. He has never asked for any sort of reprieve or mercy, thinking that he needs no such thing. What more is there to do? Megatron is not worse than Satan. He genuinely believes that his Way is best, while Satan just wants to mess everything up."

"I still say You should give him some of that Old Testament justice!"

God sighed audibly. "It was only with the New Testament, put in the hands of the right people, that I managed to secure Earth. The parts of the Old Testament that you're thinking of only convinced one nation. What makes you think going back would work now?"

Now, the angel's patience was used up, and he turned to go. He thought of giving a parting shot, but instead, gave a perfunctory bow at the door and walked through. Yahweh could be so stubborn sometimes!

Yahweh sighed again. Angels were immortal and most had lived for eons, yet some of them liked to rush things as if they were humans. How could that one not see that even if Megatron took over the entire mundane part of the universe for 10,000 years, it would be but a blip on the face of eternity?

Plus, he figured, he was already unleashing some Old Testament justice - just not the type the angel had been thinking of. In Earth's OT, nations that fell out of favor were often given into the hands of invaders and made to suffer for some time. Tarantos had been under the sway of corrupt, lazy priests for a long time now, and that had not gone unnoticed. Still, he had sent minor prophets to warn of the robots and give the people a last chance at salvation. Now it was up to Tarantos whether or not those warnings would be heeded.

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

Outside a Portal to Heaven

The lights of blaster fire filled the space outside, and suddenly, Yahweh's consciousness was distracted by the need to direct about 90 souls straight to Hell. Someone out there had just cleared the usual group of evil entities out of the way with a very hard and fast method. Now, that same someone was trying to match his frequency to that found at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, or at least, the one that used to be found there. It was clearly an attempt to breach the Portal by trying to diminish the difference between his own energy and that of Heaven.

Yahweh took note of the activity, but didn't need to do anything. The Catholic Church of Earth had been filled with corruption in its last years, and this had caused its energy to become too negative to be anywhere near the authorized levels.

Outside, the Decepticon war-scout, now fitted with a "black box" version of Carjack's frequency controller, looked smug about his victory over the entities and simultaneously frustrated at the controller's inability to hit the energy pattern that would let him sneak through the warp point. Making matters worse was the lack of any indication of what that frequency would be. The area seemed like any other part of space!

The scout tried many types of energy to get the portal to open up for him, but eventually, began to run out of Energon and had to leave. He did so, returning to the mundus via a Paranormal Research portal, not realizing that by blasting the other entities away (as ordered by General Shockwave), he had just put Cybertron onto some new radars.

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

Vallermoore

"Oh, no," Fire Eater reassured her. "We know that some nations have too many cops to be able to successfully get away with very much. Plus, even we need mechanics and the like, and we don't find it too calming when someone who is supposed to be helpful has a rap sheet a mile long."

"You do, however, have to have the right mindset. One of the big missions of the Temple here is to help people grow that mindset. Very few biologicals start out with it. However, as you grow in Megatronism, you'll start to see things differently. One day, you'll look back and wonder how you could have ever been so weak. You'll also find that you aren't shocked or appalled when people take matters into their own hands and it makes the news. When that happens, you'll find that your desire to be around weak people and in a weak culture has greatly diminished. That's when it'll be time to start thinking seriously about coming to a planet where the people have more self-empowered attitudes."

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

Tarantos

By now, most of the missionaries were pointing out the contraditions in Saviorism's Holy Book - contradictions that had, at least for the most part, been introduced by several generations of corrupt officials in the High Church. When some of the more learned members of the public attempted to refute the assertion that there were contradictions, their arguments were easily shown to be mental gymnastics. "Why are you following a religion that forces you to corrupt your own data in order to believe!?" The missionaries demanded. "It's time to be intellectually honest, and take pride in your brains and your ability to use them! It's time to throw out this SHAM your church has foisted upon you!"

It was true that many Popas had decided to edit their Bible a bit here and there, until so many "here and theres" added up that the original message was fairly mashed - and in some cases, lost. As on Earth, much of this was done before literacy was widespread; one most people could read, it was far harder to say that the Holy Book said something new. All of these hamhanded edits were ruthlessly exploited by the Megatronist missionaries to make the official church's version of the religion, if not quite the religion itself, look extremely suspect. There was no doubt that many of the Popas could not resist the temptation to rule according to their own will while claiming that it was actually God's will, at least not after the missionaries pointed out the most suspicious passages. To the Decepticons, this was no surprise. It was what was expected of theocracy, which they thought of as the worst possible combination of rules being forced onto the leader by a Book, and the leader responding by making the Book say at least some of what he wanted it to. "The only solution to this is to have a god who is right there to ensure that it cannot happen," the missionaries proclaimed, while presenting Leader Megatron as the living and physically present god who would run things properly.

Meanwhile, several stronger missionaries were sent to Holyopolis. This time, they didn't bother to land to see the reaction. They blasted every Popa Guardsman they could see from the air, and didn't come down until they saw no more heavily-armed opposition.

From Cybertron, Megatron watched closely via remote viewing. He wasn't interested in the action itself - he knew that any Decepticon force could make short work of military opposition - but he was interested in watching what happened to those who lost their lives to his forces. Soon enough, he had traced their souls to a new portal...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

MasterBlaster transferred to the new body, and immediately felt both its power and its weight. He hefted his old form over his shoulder. Now, he could either take it home as a spare or sell it to a foundry after moving all of the stuff from its panels to the new body.

Once that was done, he'd need to find a gang that seemed like it could be taken over. The AEDP had suggested finding one that was already unsatisfied with its current leader. How would he know which one(s) were ready for a mini regime change? He decided to go to some Quick Drinks and see if he could overhear any complaining...

[Vallermoore]

Heaven

Whilst not yet angry enough to strike directly, Yahweh did decide to quietly locate the planet these would be invaders came from. He decided to strike Cybertron with a plague-one of rain of the normal water kind, enough for a small flood, just enough to rust up the panels so the whole planet would need a good clean and a scouring of rust. He was a lot more forgiving then he used to be in the old times when he was rising in rank within the Heavens. Certainly he didn't want to destroy Cybertron or make it unusable, just cause these bots a major headache. He waved His Hand, and normal-sized thunderstorms formed over large areas of Cybertron.

Cybertron

Lightning would only cause minor pain and damage because of the Faraday cage within all Decepticon bodies, but the rain-on Cybertron! would be a nasty shock. There was not enough water to drown humans, let alone giant war robots, and only bots in a badly damaged state from blasting were likely to short out, but it would be immensely annoying to clean up. Those caught in the rain, including General Carjack, let out a torrent of Decepticon oaths and hurried for cover. The rain flowed over the streets and got into shops and houses. Whilst there was not enough to do anything really serious, it was going to be a pain to clean up after the hour long storm ended. Eyes were dark and engines were revving with rage all over the affected areas of Cybertron.

General Soundwave could have fired the Ignore Cannon Array, but didn't for several reasons.

First, such a weapon normally needed Megatron's personal approval to fire. Second, it would in effect make Yahweh, if Yahweh was doing this, unreachable. Whilst he could not then harm Decepticons, nor could they get at him. Third, whilst the rain would be a major pain, as long as it was cleaned up quickly and did not last too long, the Metal Planet would at worst need a good cleaning. Only the first layer was affected and only parts of that. Fourth, this would make all the bots really hate whoever caused it, which would make great propaganda. He did however make sure he radioed Megatron. "Leader Megatron, you are not going to believe this, but it is RAINING on Cybertron! And if I use the Ignore Cannon Array, then we won't be able to go after whoever or whatever did this. The floods are nowhere higher then three feet deep-a thin film of water to us, but it could cause a real mess if not cleaned up. It would make great propaganda against Yahweh though."

*****
SolarTempest cursed. Whilst the inside of his mansion was safe, the outside was now wet.

*****
MasterBlaster was flying to a Quick Drink when he got rained on. "Great Cybertron! It's not supposed to rain on the Metal Planet!" He soon landed and entered a rather packed Quick Drink full of cursing Decepticons, furious at the unheard of rain.
*****
Loyal Star used his magic for weather control, pushing a large part of the cloud high enough to make it hit space and vanish. Since that sort of thing was what Equestrian magic was meant to do, it only took him a matter of minutes to deal with the cloud in his sector. Of course, this act of heroism was noticed by Domintel at once. He called aloud "If there are any former unicorns or pegasui here, please help me banish these clouds using your magic. Megatron would want us if possible to deal with the problem ourselves so that He does not have to do it."
*****
Vallermoore

"That's good to know, Vallermoore's police are quite effective at their job. After my first military stint and some raids to set myself up, I could see myself as a Debugger, helping those bots who have mind problems and can't fix them by themselves. But I need to become a proper Megatronist first so that I can think like a Decepticon would and fit seamlessly into your unique culture."

*****
Tarantos

Whilst many were still believers Saviourism was starting to be pulled apart for many more of them. One of the Cardinals, highly respected, said "If your God is real, I challenge him to make the Sun set right now!"

Those of the Popa Guards who were good according to their religion, did indeed go to Heaven, although some went to Hell. Before Megatron could fly through the portal. his communicator crackled into life with the dreadful news. Horrible caustic rust-causing water was falling on the Metal Planet! An outrage!

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

When Carjack saw lightning, he - at first - didn't think much of it. He was used to lightning, and wind, and torrents upon torrents of rain. Central Florida typically had that weather daily for six months of the year! It was only after a few moments that he realized that he shouldn't be seeing that here on the Metal Planet.

He always loved the rain, and his many layers of rain-proof wax, clearcoat, and paint were made especially for the conditions of Earth. Even this torrent, which he'd noticed was adding up into what would become a rather major flood, wasn't enough to deter him. He stood in the middle of the street with a boyish look on his face as the power of lightning banged down around him. There was nothing like the feeling of all of that energy...

As this went on, the general realized that only one being would both want to and be able to make it rain buckets all over Cybertron. So Megatron has taken some sort of major direct action and started a war for believers, Carjack thought silently. And now we see that Yahweh still does market share protection after all.

Suddenly, loud booms and bright flashes went up from the ground all over the planet. Transformers - of the electrical variety - were blowing up one after the other as rain blasted down into their vents. On Earth, such devices never had upward-facing grilles specifically because that would allow rain damage, but here on Cybertron, it was standard practice to make them with vents all over. Much of the planet's electrical infrastructure was done this way - after all, it never rained, so why not? It improved cooling! Today, however, never had become rarely, and within minutes, almost all of the exposed electrical infrastructure of the planet was down.

At the Main Refinery, electrically-controlled valves and pressure releases failed as the huge Energon-fired cracking burners continued to run. Soon, mechanical backup alarms were shrieking as the giant installation's 500-foot-tall stacks and condensers threatened to explode as pressure built up inside them. Fortunately for everyone around, Megatron Energon's engineers were more safety-minded than most Decepticons, and just when it looked like it could be the end of the monumental installation, purely mechanical pressure-activated check valves were tripped. Vaporized, superheated petroleum byproducts in various stages of refinement vented off with the noise of a supernaturally-large teakettle, quickly diluting in the air and losing explosiveness. Meanwhile, workers rushed to manually shut off the burners. The same scene was repeated at the planet's many smaller refineries.

The nation's countless foundries weren't in as much trouble, though without electricity, the stirrers that kept molten metal in motion shut off. Since their big burners kept working, they didn't end up with pits filled with solid plugs, but the metal in normally-cooler areas of their pits began to congeal since it was no longer being stirred in with the material from the hottest areas. Most foundrybots responded by manually stirring the metal with giant sticks made of metals with higher melting points - a huge PITA, but workable in the short term.

Down on the second level of the planet, the ceilings began to drip as the water made its way through panels that were never meant to be that tight. Lights began to go down as the first layer of the Underworks was exposed to the same problems as the surface.

Occasionally, gushes of water could be heard on this level. Raiders, who realized what the water was doing to the infrastructure, were coming down from the surface. Each time they opened a hatch, they were accompanied by a flood of water that continued until they managed to close the hatch back up. Quietly, these shady-looking raiders made their way to places where they'd seen locked doors. There, they stood and waited. Once the power to these mechanometric locks was cut, they'd be able to blast them off the doors without any fear of triggering alarms. Soon, the sounds of fighting broke out - some of the owners of these hidden rooms had expected raid attempts and had come down to provide a "more active" form of security.

As this went on, the drops of water became small rivulets, and these rivulets made their way to gaps leading to the the second Underworks level. This would continue until the water was either gotten rid of or it made it all the way to the core of Cybertron.

Unknown to many, the loss of electrical power also knocked Cybertron's massive, building-sized oxygen generators offline. It would take months for the planet's reserve of oxygen to drop below the levels needed to support combustion engines, but the very fact that this could happen at all would be seen as a shot across the bow to those in planetary engineering.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Tarantos

After a missionary had been given a challenge to relay to his god, he had quickly informed Megatron, who prepared to come on the double. Just as the Divine Leader was about to warp over to the location on Tarantos, which had been cleared out just for his arrival, he got the message that it was raining outside. Alas, he already had the portal open, so the Tarantians could see the look on his face. He had to use his freeze-face script to avoid showing any kind of dismay, while internally, he wanted to run a brick out of his exhaust system. Immediately, he calculated how much damage a thunderstorm could cause and realized that it could easily run into the trillions of Cubes thanks to hidden water causing rust over the next several months. His biggest challenge wouldn't be making the sun set during the day on Tarantos, but instead, using his divine power to make sure that the natural amount of rust damage never happened.

"It's the competition," he radioed back. "He's doing that as a market share protection maneuver. Don't worry about it for now. I'll be back to deal with it soon enough." With that, he strode through the portal and arrived on Tarantos looking as regal as possible.

Since he was at full size, he was far more awesome to behold than the missionaries he had sent. He looked down at the puny human who had dared to challenge him, and fought back the urge to just step on the ant for its insolence. He knew that doing that would only send the message that he couldn't actually meet the challenge. Of course, he secretly made plans to delete the human later, so he couldn't continue to be a thorn in his side.

Immediately, he called for the media to be sent out. "There is no point in doing something that impressive just to convince one guy and a small crowd of mildly curious people," he proclaimed. "Bring your radio, newsreel, and newspaper reporters, and then I shall deliver." On this planet, TV was barely a thing, so he didn't bother asking for that type of camera crews.

After many minutes - far more than it would have taken on the Earth of the 2000s - reporters began to arrive. When they were all ready to record, the cardinal repeated his challenge for all to hear. The reporters and newsreel crews turned their attention to the sun, which was high in the sky, and then to Megatron. Soon, Megatron raised his hand toward the sun as if commanding it, and after a slight delay, it began to get closer to the horizon. Over the next 30 minutes, it sank below the horizon line and this part of Tarantos became night. Instead of changing the planet's rotational speed, Megatron had actually moved the sun itself - this eliminated the concern of sending the planet's inhabitants flying, but produced the same visual effect.

"Simple enough for an actual god," Megatron boasted cockily. He had originally intended to level a counter-challenge against theirs, but after getting the report of rain just before his arrival, decided that it might be best not to do that quite yet. Instead, he waited for the cardinal's response while looking both regal and smug at the same time.

After about an hour, Megatron would return the sun to its proper position, not wanting to be like an alicorn and end up having to fuss with changing the day/night cycle manually on an ongoing basis. Elsewhere in the system, alien astronomers would immediately begin projects to try to figure out what had moved their sun.

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

Later, Megatron would return to Cybertron, use his power to collect all loose H20 molecules, and form them into a big ball of water just above the planet. Then, he'd use that water to make one of his mining worlds far more amenable to biological life so he could bring slaves there to work it, while saving some out in case he found another use for it.

Providing a temporary fix for the electrical problems wouldn't take him long either, but the big planet-wide upgrade needed to fit everything with waterproof insulation would be a costly and ongoing project.

He noticed that one area had no rain falling, and wondered what was up with that. A quick look at the energy signatures in the region showed that magic had been used, most likely by someone who used to be a biological. However, he was too busy dealing with the rest of the water to track this down further. DomIntel would surely tell him about it later if it was anything of note.

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

For now, on Cybertron, there would be no statement just yet other than a general "we're working on it" from the Bureau of Propaganda. Of course, Decepticons knew that this didn't just refer to an investigation as to who did it and how. All of Cybertron eagerly awaited the Bare Sand Raid order they were sure would be coming, along with any free upgrades needed to make victory certain. Few had any idea of what kind of target they might one day be sent to.

At the Quick Drink where MasterBlaster had gone, all of the Decepticons were cursing the rain and vowing war on whoever sent it. Many suspected Masher had done it somehow - rumors of him claiming godhood had spread, and everyone knew that there was friction between him and Megatron. Others, however, poo-poohed that notion, saying that the IOPC had too many assets on Cybertron to want to attack it in such a broad-based way.

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

The Bureau of Paranormal Research

"We have to find a way to barge in there and attack this guy directly!" Megatron was shouting. "It's nonsense that he can sit there in some kind of aetherial fortress and drop blasted water all over our pristine planet!! All of our attempts to make a portal by technological force have resulted in the portal closing just before our guy can get through. The last one was able to blast all of the stupid gits that were also trying to get in, but when it came to blasting the portal back open, nothing. His firepower just kept on going like there wasn't even a portal to hit!"

The scientists began to speak up. "We've tried sending a scout in after a righteous dead person's soul, but he got the same results. And we weren't able to even detect a portal when coming at it in the normal, mundane way."

One new guy partially raised his hand, looking a bit uncertain about even addressing the Divine Leader. After getting the nod, he said, "Maybe you can get in through a different divine realm? That would eliminate the natural gap between realm types, at least. Perhaps from there, the border is more like the one between nations when they're separated by ocean. According to Earth's Bible, there is an area at which the blessed and the condemned can see each other, separated only by a wide chasm. You could easily fly over a chasm..."

Was it true? Was the means of breaching Heaven really laid right out in what had been Earth's single best selling book?? Megatron's face had the spacey smile of a kid who'd just been told where to find the keys to Santa's storage warehouse. "10 Cubes of Private Reserve and a top honors stripe for you if it works," he said to the scientist, turning to go. Getting into Heaven might be hard for him, he figured, but as the Decepticon of Decepticons, he could probably waltz right in to a realm of less repute. Before he went, he would make a new Save Disk just in case he had extended trouble getting back out.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

Fire Eater smiled, nodded, and wished Sara a good life. He gave her plenty of books and pamphlets on Megatronism to get her started, along with a schedule of services for the Temple. Finally, he warned that her husband's Line or friends might try vigilante action. As he gave the warning, he reached into his desk. She could see several pistols, all of the same make, in the top drawer. He retrieved one along with a box of 150 bullets and handed them to her.

"This is a Walther P-38, the official Temple firearm due to being the mundane replica of Megatron's Holy Alt Mode," he announced. "It, itself, doesn't transform - but it's very effective at transforming biological threats into daisy-pushing reject parts. Typically, it takes shooting about 100 bullets for a human or pony to learn how to properly aim a gun and hit targets that aren't right in your face. I've given you 150 rounds. Go to a range and shoot until you can hit a target at 100 yards under quick-draw conditions, and then save the rest of the bullets for anyone who needs shooting. Refresh your skills every 6 months. Just know that the cops will know it was you, so only use it on a person when you're under actual threat. And don't worry if the case is sort of iffy. As long as you have a shred of a claim of self-defense and are a Megatronist in good standing, our lawyers will make sure you get off...whatever it takes."

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

The Quick Drink was full of furious Decepticons, but luckily the anger was all being aimed at the weather, and whoever or whatever was behind it. "Masher! It has to be Masher, it's surely him," one bot said. "Once Megatron finds a way to crack that shield around Coltan, Masher will pay dearly."

"But the IOPC still operates perfectly legally here, and they must be suffering from this storm as much as anyone else. Masher would have to have a faulty logic chip to attack the Company that is the source of his wealth, power and influence," another bot pointed out. "You don't blast your own vault full of Energon Cubes. I think that biologicals with very complex tech did this for some sort of laugh. It'll wipe the smiles off their faces when we swarm out and exterminate them, and raid their planet to the bare sand and rock."

MasterBlaster didn't say it, but the thought came to his mind that Cybertron when disturbed was like a hornet's nest full of very angry hornets that would sting to death whoever damaged the nest. Another bot said "My business lost it's power and because of that I'm not being paid. If I find whoever did this to our world, they are dead meat." The other bots agreed. MasterBlaster said "When Divine Leader Megatron and General Soundwave find out who did this, and they will, we will show whoever did this why it is a fatally bad idea to drop water on the Metal Planet." And he stroked his blasters, his own eyes dark with fury at what was happening to Cybertron. When an attack on this scale happened to Cybertron, Decepticons took it as a personal insult to the Decepticon People. The last time anything on this scale happened, Equestria had ceased to exist as a nation because of it.

With the power out, holovision didn't work. The planet was full of lightning-going both ways. Down from the sky, and up from the soaked electrical circuits. Bots were sweeping water out of their shops and homes with big brooms, or boiling it away with well aimed blasts, where there were not too many other bots in the way. Down below vaults were looted as the locks stopped working, whilst battles took place in other vaults that were mainly fought with fists, as a blast from either thief or owner might blow up all the Energon in the vault and lose both bots their bodies. Those Decepticons who happened to be flying above the Metal Planet saw the huge storms, and had any biological spacecraft been present, they would been blasted on sight even more then normal, in case they were somehow causing the trouble. The whole of the Decepticon Nation were in a Raid To The Bare Sand mood and impatient to do so.

At the military bases, the soldiers were set to sweeping out the water and drying it with cloth normally used for polishing.
*****
The Quartz was safely stowed and no bot was in the least bit interested in wanting to steal it. Loyal Star said a little nervously to General Carjack "Now would be a good time to teach you scrying, Sir. You just hold the Quartz carefully and think of what or who you want to see and even if the person, animal or bot is hiding on the other side of the galaxy under another name they will show up in the crystal within seconds and you will know exactly where they are." He gave the Quartz to General Carjack and backed away a few steps. General Carjack was most likely the only bot on Cybertron not in a fit of fury about the rain.
*****
At The Bureau of Paranormal Research the scientists would soon be working not on a stable portal to Heaven that had defeated their best efforts, but on one to Hell-the bit of Hell with the chasm between Hell and Heaven.

Tarantos

When Megatron showed up, the puny humans were amazed at this massive being of steel and most bowed on the spot in fear and respect. Not a Cardinal who dared to issue a challenge. Instead of stepping on him, Megatron met his challenge and the face of the Cardinal went white. "O Saviour, if it is your will that this planet remain yours, please show up Yourself now to defend it for us. Otherwise we will have no choice but to surrender and abandon You, and become worshippers of this New God instead," he shouted to the sky. He knew that in private the Popa was praying in the same way. If their God did not show up to fight for them, then clearly He no longer cared about them and by abandoning their old faith they could still save their souls. Unless their God showed up personally, and quickly, most people would, reluctantly in some cases, become Megatronists.

As soon as Tarantos had surrendered, Megatron would get back to Cybertron, by which time the rain had stopped. A godly miracle was needed from Him if His people were not to spend weeks or months on their hands and knees cleaning away the rust with scrapers. He also knew His people would want to be told who did this so they could take revenge. Later when the time was right, Domintel would inform him of Loyal Star's good deed.

Vallermoore

Sara thanked him for being so helpful and kind to her. In time she would be well on her way to being proper immigration material, but then one of her husband's friends went after her with a revolver. Luckily for her, his shot missed and she put two in him. The police investigated, but other then being locked up overnight, she was not punished as he had clearly fired first and in a public place too.

Soon after she left the Temple, Fire Eater's Coder radioed him. "It's raining on Cybertron! Yes, you heard me right. I had to sweep the water, three feet of it, out of my house with a broom. Please could you pray to Megatron to make the rain stop?"

[Victorious Decepticons]

Tarantos

Megatron wasn't bothered when the Cardinal called for his god to personally appear. Even taking the documents that Megatron considered to be mostly propaganda at face value, THE Yahweh hadn't personally appeared in over 6,000 years - and even then, it was only to one human! Other than that, he had sent prophets to spread his word. Here on Tarantos, the last major prophet - the Savior - was said to have come and gone 3,000 years earlier. Of course, the planet was now coated with minor prophets, all of whom were still busily trying to anti-PR against Megatron, but apparently this Cardinal didn't think they counted. Of course, Megatron didn't mention the fact that it was now storming like a Cat 5 hurricane on a planet that, just an hour ago, had less than a small lake's worth of water within its entire gravitational sphere.

After many moments, in which nothing seemed to happen, the Cardinal reluctantly gave Megatron a bow. "I know not what our Savior is thinking," he said. "Perhaps we are as sinful as some of the fundamentalists say, and we have been abandoned. However, there is no doubt that you were able to meet my challenge, so I...I...I guess I have no more reason to oppose..." It was clear that the Cardinal was confused and bereft, and that it would take him a long time to come to terms with the one kind of regime change he thought he'd never see.

Megatron was using his powers to scan the allegiance of the population of Tarantos, and soon, he saw that over half the people had serious doubts about their old religion and that many had actually accepted him as the god of the planet. As soon as that happened, he made up a line about needing to "return to the heavens" and promised that he would be sending full-fledged priests to set up temples for the worship of the proper god of the realm: himself.

The Cardinal and the media got a good view of space and a distant view of Cybertron as Megatron opened the portal and walked through, and to them, the scene was absolutely awe-inspiring. To Megatron, the same view was cringe-inducing. Unlike the newly-impressed humans, he knew that there was something in the scene that definitely didn't belong: Thick, lightning-filled clouds all over Cybertron.

~~~~~~~~~~

Within moments, big winds began to blow over the Metal Planet as Megatron used his power to attempt to send the unwanted storms away. The big Decepticon Seal flags over government buildings whipped in the new wind, but on the ground, all that changed was the angle of the rain. New clouds reformed immediately, bringing even more water down. Megatron's engine revved with anger and frustration as he began to think of some other way to get rid of this supernatural inundation.

Finally, the downpours came to a sudden halt, and the clouds were visibly forced upward until they dissipated into the vacuum of space. Then, all of the water began to flow to a single point, which "just happened" to be on top of IOPC headquarters, until Iron City was under a thousand feet of the corrosive fluid. The inhabitants of the city, seeing the water levels rise suddenly, decided that now was a great time for a flight and all took off in various directions. Finally, all of the water that had landed was collected there. Not long after, it levitated into the sky, where a portal to another planet appeared. The water, now in a giant blob, levitated through the portal and mostly disappeared. A small remainder was directed into space, where it would remain in weightlessness until Megatron decided to do something else with it.

With the water gone, the electrical systems of the planet were dried back out. Much of the planet's power came back online simply because the stuff causing the shorts was now gone, but many infrastructure parts remained damaged due to all of the arcing that had gone on. Secretly, many poor bots were glad for all of the destruction. They knew that the government would soon be hiring, and even better, would have jobs that were not board-shortingly boring. People began to discreetly "happen to" walk towards their local power distribution authorities and stake them out so they would also "happen to" be there when the help wanted signs went up.

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

Once the initial problem was taken care of, Megatron flew directly to the Bureau of Impossible Physics. There, he found his scientists already busy trying to figure out how to keep the water away so he could quit using his energy on the force field he had put around the planet. They, however, were having problems figuring out how to erect enough energy-producing devices to recreate the effect across the stratosphere. "It will take a long time to do it with physics alone," they said, giving a prediction of a month at the earliest.

Megatron told them to keep working on it and left, but he had no intention of having to spend so much mental energy that long. The way it was now, Yahweh could send some other disaster and possibly overload the magic powering Megatron's system. He needed something that would work NOW!

Replicator's Shop

Replicator showed only the mildest surprise when the Decepticon Leader came through his main door. "I take it you are lifting the embargo on dealing with Masher, and returning my seized payment with 25% interest for my inconvenience? Or are you just stopping by to chat?" The counterfeiter said by way of greeting. It was clear that if the answer was negative, Megatron would be getting nothing but a bow from this counterfeiter.

"That depends on if you can do the project I require," Megatron said, sounding much like a human with gritted teeth. His eyes were noticeably dark, though still glowing.

"Oh, I've been spending far too many cycles on other things to even think about a project of the size someone like you would require," Replicator demurred. "But I think I'd be able to think much more clearly if I didn't have to worry about who I do or don't do business with, or about that vault that should have my original payment and 25% interest in it." He said again.

"Wait, what? You want that just to talk about the new project?!" Megatron feigned shock. He himself charged high fees just to talk, so he wasn't really all that surprised - nor was he surprised when Replicator simply nodded, unwilling to say another word until he had the okay and his vault was keyed back to his possession and topped up with the demanded interest rate.

Megatron turned without a word, but gave a little wave to beckon Replicator along. Behind him, the counterfeiter had a look of smug satisfaction as he flipped his shop sign to "closed" and followed along. Luckily for him, Megatron didn't see the look on his face.

Soon enough, the two were standing in a full vault that had just been topped up - Replicator's now, not the government's - discussing the new project. Megatron simply needed Replicator to devise a way to keep the rain shield up, with just one alteration: It would need to allow for the easy passage of Decepticons.

To Megatron's irritation, Replicator gave an opening bid of a trillion Cubes of Supreme. It took over an hour of arguing and bargaining to chew him down to 100 billion Cubes of Standard, with Replicator constantly talking about how much effort it must be taking to keep that shield up and Megatron threatening to use Replicator's soul to ease the load. Even so, a deal was eventually struck. That's when Megatron got even more irritation. Replicator had been using his counterfeit Quantum Processor all throughout the negotiations while Megatron had been using his to keep the rain out, so as soon as the deal was done - and the Energon was delivered - Replicator pulled out a piece of scrap foil-paper and quickly drew out the design for the new system. "There ya go," he said, handing it over.

With the plans in hand, it'd only take 10 days to have the necessary components made and the requisite devices installed around the planet. It was clear that, aggravations aside, there were times when Replicator's unique creativity and way of looking at things were undeniably helpful. Things like this were what had kept the counterfeiter alive, even though he charged out the exhaust whenever a project was truly essential.

"You really should get a Replicator Brand Quantum Processor," Replicator added. "It has multi-threading and 100,000 quantum cores! It's said to be even more powerful than the Original, and requires no magical element! It's only 10 trillion Cubes, flat."

Megatron had his fusion cannon up and was ready to blast this insolent offspring-of-a-slag-chunk into vapor when an idea hit him.

"More powerful than the Original, huh? That's nonsense, but still: Congratulations - you've just conscripted yourself! Welcome to Operation Market Share Expansion!"

Replicator's claim was indeed nonsense. What made his skills useful wasn't the raw power of his processor, but his particular excellence at being able to come up with ways to copy pretty much any effect he saw. This was a result of his personality and way of looking at things, not just his intelligence. His Replicator Brand Quantum Processor had just allowed him to arrive at his conclusion faster than he otherwise could have.

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

Elsewhere on Cybertron

Carjack held the quartz in his hands. "It's that easy? Just focus on who I want to see?"

After getting the confirmation, he decided to check on Megatron. He knew that if war broke out against Heaven, the Decepticon Military would be dragged into it - and with the anti-Decepticon message of most of the religions coming from there, his Battalion would likely be one of the first to be ordered in. Using the scrying crystal to see if Megatron was anywhere near being able to get to the planned battlezone was an intuitive decision.

Soon, an image appeared in the points of quartz. Megatron was at the Bureau of Paranormal Research, along with another bot. It didn't take long for the general to recognize the other one as Replicator, who looked extremely pissed. Apparently, Replicator had been drafted into some sort of free work. He was tinkering with what appeared to be the special substance that the Bureau of Propaganda said would be good for quantum computing. Meanwhile, Megatron was apparently forming some sort of mechanism out of an aetherial substance that would be invisible to anyone not sensitive to magic. Various types of energy were being output from this combination physical and magical device, and as it was tuned, the frequencies got higher and higher.

"Oh good God." Carjack blurted out after realizing what they were up to. Loyal Star looked on with curiosity, but Carjack clammed up. "It's surely classified," he said. There were sooo many things he wanted to say, but as a general, he had more of a duty than most others to keep state secrets secret.

Next, he decided to spy on General Shockwave, who had been mysteriously absent from the last vision. Soon, the scene changed to that of Paranormal Research's portal asteroid. There, the portal generation machine was being tuned, not to a high frequency, but one that was near rock bottom. This was obviously much easier than whatever Megatron was aiming for, but Carjack figured they almost surely wouldn't know the catch with that sort of thing: It's always easier to get into a bad place than it is to get out.

"You're lucky you're not in the military yet," he commented as he continued to watch. Changing the subject, he said, "so what is it that keeps every mundane Joe from being able to do this? To most of the people on Earth, quartz was either a pretty stone or something you use to set the timing of watches. Even here, it's used mostly for internal clocks and semiconductors."

[Vallermoore]

Tarantos

When their own God did not appear to duel Megatron personally, most of the nation, even the priests and the Holy Inquisitors, gave up and decided that once they know what Megatronism expected of them they would convert. There would be heretics and secret members of the old religion to hunt down for years to come, and burial of the dead would continue until proper, non-polluting crematoriums were built and put into operation, (noone wanted to smell the stink of burning human flesh) but the struggle for most hearts and minds was over. For one final day, the old ways were stuck to and a final feast was held. Afterwards Priests handed over the holy robes and bibles and objects of their old religion. Holy Inquisitors met to swear the Oath to the new religion, and to offer their services to the Priests of Megatron. For now, amongst the lay people, many things continued as they were for now. To open all the prisons at this early stage and abolish most laws all at once would not cause Megatronism, it just would cause utter chaos over the entire planet. The Popa went into hiding but Forintel agents soon hauled him out. Very few Cardinals needed to be hauled out like him as most meekly surrendered. That Sunday, there would be Priests of Megatron in every church and theological college , and it would be them who gave the sermons from now on. The Papal Palace was thrown open to the new ruler. Since the country was a dictatorship already, there were no political parties to ban.

Cybertron

When Megatron arrived back in Cybertronian Space and saw all but one area of the Metal Planet covered in clouds and rain and lightning, his eyes darkened to thin red lines of light. If this had happened before he became a god, it would have caused trillions of Energon Cubes in damage and the whole nation would have to join in the scouring and cleaning of Cybertron. His first attempt to blow the clouds away failed and Megatron's engine revved with fury. Cybertron was his planet, damm it, and it was being wrecked in front of his eyes. After pulling the clouds up into space, he needed to remove all that horrible H20, unless he wanted Cybertron to look like Mars, red with rust, for weeks. He decided to use it to flood Iron City as he got rid of it. The bots there all got away, but everything in the IOPC Headquarters would be shorted out and water damaged. Drugs meant for other nations were washed away, spare bodies and blasters were shorted out, and a good deal of damage was done. Some IOPC bots decided to fly to Coltan and let Masher know what had happened.

When the water was dealt with, those bots nearby transformed and cheered and clapped.

"Good riddance to bad water!"

"Long Live Leader Megatron!"

A nearby Debugger, hardly the most warlike of bots normally, gave a deep bow and said politely "O Divine Leader Megatron, all of the Nation is waiting for a Raid to the Bare Sand order. Please, tell us the location so we can get our revenge on whoever or whatever dared to pour disgusting caustic water upon glorious great Cybertron."

With a force field around the planet, those bots who had just flown for a short trip were worried that they would starve to death for something that was not at all their fault as they could not reach their vaults to refuel.

*****
Loyal Star was standing politely far enough away not to look into the crystal. "Oh good God!" Carjack said. "It's surely classified." He was worried in fact about Megatron's planned war against Yahweh's Heaven that would drag the whole Military at least into it. "You're lucky you're not in the military yet. So what is it that keeps every mundane Joe from being able to do this? To most of the people on Earth, quartz was either a pretty stone or something you use to set the timing of watches. Even here, it's used mostly for internal clocks and semiconductors."

"To operate it as it is at the moment, you need to either know complex magic like you do...or to have been born a unicorn sapient pony originally. Nearly every unicorn-or former unicorn- can use that scrying spell with ease. It is said one can even spy on immortal beings with it, although few ponies dare do that for fear of godly retaliation. Domintel would find it a great help, and so would the Military."

Just then, two uniformed Domintel agents landed and walked up with big smiles on their faces. "Domintel sees all, and you are the bot who managed to remove part of the clouds before our Divine Leader got here! Not just that, you have just brought a new and very useful invention to Cybertron, even if it might require a little tinkering for us to use. Divine Leader Megatron himself wants you to come to his mansion in the Government District, along with that wonderful scrying crystal. He wants you too, General Carjack, for classified and most likely military reasons."

Loyal Star felt very pleased with himself. His God was going to see him face to face and for good reasons too, and he would be allowed to enter very tightly protected airspace. The gleaming buildings of the Government District, even with not all the power restored yet, was a true wonder to behold. High ranking and very rich bots watched them pass from the ground.

*****
MasterBlaster left when the water went away and found another Quick Drink, listening in quietly for a gang annoyed with it's currant leader for some reason.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Tarantos

Megatron radioed orders to the missionaries as soon as he was informed of the surrender of the Holy Inquisitors and the capture of the Popa. While the planet would not be enslaved en masse like it would be if it had been militarily conquered, some standard practices would remain. The first of these was that the old leader would be executed, and the proceedings broadcast over the most advanced available mass media. Here, alas, that meant the radio, which wasn't nearly as impactful as a visual medium. To help make up for it, newsreel producers would be ordered to make films of it for later dissemination.

The point of executing the former leader(s) was simple: It ensured that they couldn't rally people around them for a revolution. While some would see executed leaders as martyrs, this wasn't nearly as powerful as a living person who could not only gather other people to himself but already had the qualities needed to actually lead them. Personality cults minus the original personality, on the other hand, were usually led by yahoos who would quickly succumb to the efforts of the secret service, or at best, a few squads of actual troops.

While the Papal Palace was fancy, Megaton had no desire to live there. It was done in an old-fashioned "churchy" style that was far too un-Cybertron-like for the new god's tastes. Worse yet, it was strongly associated with the authority of the former regime. He ordered it razed. This would further symbolize the fact that the old regime was dead. A new palace would be built - out of metal, like a proper mansion - in a different location. He chose the block on which his first missionary had landed for the new site. Here, it would strengthen his branding without the need to compete with that of generations of popas.

As these orders went out, full-fledged Priests of Megatron began to arrive. They went straight to the planet's churches and began deconsecration ceremonies so that the people would see that the structures were officially taken from the old religion. Then, they went straight into consecration ceremonies dedicating them to Divine Leader Megatron. Once that was done, minor renovations begun. The symbols of the old religion were removed and replaced with ones for Megatronism. The Priests avoided treating the old symbols in an overly trollish way, at least in public; they knew that actual loyalty would not have switched so easily and preferred not to needlessly incite counter-revolution. Instead, the old icons were wrapped and carefully stowed upon cargo-bots. The people didn't need to know that said bots would be flying to a big materials processing asteroid instead of the Decepticon National Museum's vaults. Decepticons, after all, had no direct use for the "competition's branding and advertising." A few icons would be kept for historical reasons, but one representative copy of each type was plenty enough for that. These actually would go into the vaults on Cybertron, mainly so the Tarantians couldn't use them to secretly carry on their worship of Megatron's competition.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Portal Asteroid

It didn't take long for the portal-making machine to lock onto the target frequency, and as it shifted into the actual portal-generation phase, the researchers radioed the Main Military Base. There, Megatron stopped what he was doing long enough to order the deployment of 10 crack troops from the Magical Battalion. Soon, the troops arrived at the asteroid and were briefed.

Their mission, it turned out, wasn't to jump over the chasm to invade Heaven just yet. Instead, it was a scouting run, with the large group size being sent just in case anything there was actually powerful enough to stand a chance. During this run, they were to see what the general conditions were like, who or what was in Hell, and of course get the answer to the big question: Was there indeed a chasm from which Heaven could be seen, and if so, did it seem to be breachable? They were warned that the Paranormal Research Division had rated the veracity of the chasm part of the story as "unlikely," and told not to spend too much Energon on finding one if one wasn't readily apparent.

After the briefing, they proceeded to jump through the portal, not knowing how much - if any - of the story was true. Parables, they were warned, were presented not to recount history, but to provide a "moral to a story." In short, they were considered fiction even by most believers of the originating religion, though they were believed to have been told to make a point rather than just to entertain. Soon, they would find out for themselves...

~~~~~~~~~~
Cybertron

Soon, Loyal Star and Carjack arrived at the Megatron Mansion, where Leader Megatron was waiting for them.

Megatron first congratulated Loyal Star on his work against the thunderstorm and for his willingness to share the art of scrying with Carjack. "I would make you a Priest right now, but no Decepticon will give that much respect to someone who hasn't seen any sort of Decepticon Military service. However, as soon as your stint is done, I have a planet I'll want to send you to. It's far from here, but more importantly, it has a fairly high military capability. That makes it perfect for being converted rather than invaded. Right now, my presence is strong among Decepticons-in-Spirit, but they need guidance in order to dispel some misconceptions they have."

"Now, I'd like to take a look at that crystal..."

Loyal Star handed him his crystal, and immediately, Megatron tested its capabilities by looking in on a group of highly-armed scouts that he had sent to his Portal Asteroid. Soon, right within the view of Loyal Star, an image of a hot and partially-flaming realm appeared.

"Excellent, excellent!" Megatron said. "It looks as if one of my plans is working well." He handed Loyal Star's crystal back, and then went into another room with General Carjack.

~~~~~~~~~~

In the private room, Megatron made no attempt to hide his excitement. "That guy has no clue!" He said, directing Carjack to use his own crystal to watch the events. "Look at the border there. No security at all. We will not wait any longer. Prepare your Battalion. It looks as if the claim of there being only 144,000 humans in the entire place is true. I'm sure your Battalion can deal with what will surely become counter-revolutionaries."

"What about the Heavenly Army?" Carjack asked. "Also, that number is only known to be valid for one of the religions and maybe two. There might be a higher cap, or even no cap, for~"

"Do you see anything like that? Where would they be hiding? It's just a boring bunch of trees and grass with some old dudes sitting around! Prepare your Battalion! I shall order several other divisions to join me as well. Today we shall take over that monopoly and make it MY monopoly! I'll open a giant portal myself so we can all swarm through at once!"

"But it's an interdimensional location!" Carjack protested. "Everything is not likely to be obvious!"

"I said prepare them! Do it now, or we settle this matter by dueling!" Megatron ordered. Reluctantly, Carjack left to rouse the Genociders to readiness, but if he thought he could win a duel against Megatron, he would have taken that option. Clearly the location they'd been looking at was not the true inner sanctum of Yahweh, but instead, some outer area.

After Carjack left, Megatron made himself a few fresh Saves and hid them around the mansion. While he would brook no qualms, he wasn't so half-cocked as to go into war without any insurance.

~~~~~~~~~~

What Megatron and Carjack had seen


On the other side of the portal, the first thing the scouting force saw was that the "lake of fire" was either not in this realm or was a myth entirely. Instead of any kind of lake, there was a parched field of dry grass or weeds. However, they saw that some of it was indeed on fire, though the flaming area was far in the distance.

"Looks like a wildfire zone," one of them commented over his radio.
"So much for a fuel-free smelting pit for Megatron Metals," another radioed back.

Down on the ground, humans - some nude, some with tattered clothes, and some with new-looking outfits - noticed the planes. The more modern-looking people waved, beckoning the force to land.

"You want to check that?" They began to ask each other. At first, their thought was not to, but one finally got curious enough to come down closer. There, the cracked dry "earth" was readily apparent, as was the fact that the humans stood on it with ease rather than having to swim or dog-paddle. He finally went ahead and landed on his feet after transforming.

Immediately, the scout who landed regretted that as the heat directly under his feet instantly rose to the point needed to set off his pain sensors and even managed to slightly melt his rubber foot treads. His first instinct was to open fire, but there was no mechanical device around to destroy. Soon, though, he realized that it was not getting hot enough to cause serious actual damage - only enough to make his system respond as if such damage was about to happen. He quickly turned off his pain sensors and silently scoffed about the system that he had realized wasn't geared for Decepticon capabilities.

"What!?" He demanded of the humans who had been waving to them and that now crowded around him.

"Water, water!" They cried out desperately.
"It looks like you can take us out of here!" Said some of the more intelligent ones.

"Water, huh? That's what you want?" He opened up his side panel and withdrew a big cylinder of the stuff. Before they'd been deployed, it was decided that water would likely be the best currency for bribery of the damned, and they'd all been given a cylinder for making black market deals. "What can you offer me in exchange?" He said as he held it close to them, but not quite close enough for them to grab. In response, most of the humans broke down crying, thinking that they had nothing at all and were therefore doomed to only see, but never drink, the surely-delicious fluid.

"What do you want?" One said with obvious desperation. "We have nothing material, but I might be able to tell you things." This one had been sent here for being a traitor against his own people who had sold secrets to an enemy nation, and even now, he was eager to wag his tongue.

"Tell me if there's some kind of chasm here from which Heaven can be seen. And tell me all about that area if you know of it." The Decepticon demanded as his squad-mates circled overhead riding the many convection currents that came up from the hot, parched ground.

"That damned chasm!" He said with immediate recognition. "I've never seen it, but we all know of it. It's that way." He pointed off into the distance. "About 200 miles away. We know of it here because one tells another, who tells another, until the details reach us. But it's too far to walk. This heat makes our feet hurt far too much to go there. Plus, the tales say that the fields are all aflame over there."

After getting the information, he had the human hold out his cupped hands, and dribbled some into them. The hot, shriveled man chugged it greedily and was then given another handful, which he chugged just as fast. Those around him, however, got none because they'd been no help at all.

Soon, the scout was back in the air, and they proceeded to fly in the indicated direction. Soon, they reached the place where the fields were openly burning. There, a few condemned humans and even a couple of more-intelligent monkeys cried out in pain and desperation, but appeared not to be in as much pain as they would be if it was their physical bodies on fire. Some, near the very edge of the fiery zone, were moving towards the non-flaming part without any apparent interference.

Eventually, they saw a guy in robes that looked like they were once very fine, but now were scorched and tattered.

"That's him!" The group leader announced on the radio. "It has to be! The 'rich man' from the story!"

"There's the chasm!" came a shout from another. Sure enough, only a few feet beyond the Rich Man, a giant chasm loomed. Across it, a fine, lush area was plainly visible, and an old-looking man sat under a tree looking back with the sort of expression a guy gets when he's already seen almost everything 500 times over. He clearly wasn't bothered by the sudden appearance of sapient metal things in plane mode.

The group landed on their feet - pain sensors off in advance this time - and noticed the temperature rise to paint-scorching levels without damaging their underlying Metal. Soon, they all began to talk to each other excitedly.

"So that's the place!"
"It looks a lot like Earth. Where's that bright light energy it's supposed to be full of?"
"So much for the stories of Heaven being on a cloud!"
"Who's the old coot?" One pointed at the old man sitting under a tree on the good side.
There was a slight pause. "You know how on Earth, Yahweh's main religions are called 'Abrahamic religions?' That there is Abraham!" Said the group member who had actually bothered to unzip his Foreign Religions data pack before going on the mission.
"So what's he famous for?"
"Mating with so many Earthian women that he sired a whole bunch of descendants and tribes..."
"No, no." Another scolded. "He's the first Jew and the first prophet, and he made the original covenant between Earth's humans and Yahweh. Then all of the other related religions sprang from that one. At least officially. How about you yell over and ask him about it? and make sure to use your sonar analyzer to detect if there's a hidden barrier while you're at it." He quietly muttered the last part.

The one referred to turned up his voice speaker and did just that, but Abraham didn't yell back. Instead, he just waved. Alas, his refusal to respond verbally didn't stymie the Decepticon's trick. The robot had already detected that his own voice reflected off of the objects on the other side of the chasm at the levels expected of a situation in which there was no barrier between them and him. It should be easy flying, he silently thought to himself.

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

Suddenly, the air was split by a very well-known voice.

"DECEPTICONS, ATTACK!!!"

Omniscience, it turned out, was not one of the real capabilities of the Coder of the Biologicals. Like many beings with a massive reputation, his had grown several times larger than it had started out, and many of the claims were actually wild exaggerations of the original truth. "Knows and can predict a huge amount of things" became "omniscient," "a really good guy" became "omnibenevolent," and "massively powerful" became "omnipotent." Atheists had disproved many of these claims, but their own disproofs were taken the wrong way and used to argue that he didn't exist at all - a position that was, in itself, wrong. But today was not the day the details of these things would be considered on a philosophical level.

To the Coder's surprise, the Decepticon Military - with an initial invasion force 10,000,000 strong - was already there in Hell and heading quickly for the chasm that was set up to defeat much more primitive attempts at crossing. Leader Megatron, at the front as expected, flew over the chasm with ease, followed by the multi-million-bot first wave. Below them, condemned humans cheered. The Decepticons then flew over the few Paradise-side humans near the passage, who were now not nearly so relaxed as they had been, and blazed their way across Paradise seemingly unopposed. The area was lush and green, and very lightly populated, at least in the areas the Decepticons could see. Nothing within view appeared to be of military functionality or even worth blasting.

"Where's the enemy?" The soldiers began to say as they spread out into info-gathering formations.
"Did he abandon the place to us?"
"Nah, he couldn't have! I recognized some of those humans down there. They're all big shots from Earth! He wouldn't just leave them to us!"
"All from Earth?!? What about the other planets he runs?"
"Don't tell me this is some kind of Earthian containment realm..."

Megatron's voice came over the encrypted military frequency. "This has to be a trap! Stay on your highest alert!" In response, everyone began to fly more carefully and was on the lookout for ambushes and other tricks.

Suddenly, Megatron's suspicion was confirmed. A loud battle cry rang out from the right of the group: "ALLAHU AKBAR!"

The first war-ready defenders, led by the Prophet Muhammad, had come to the scene riding giant flying warhorses. The troops were enlarged to match. "It's about time I got to chop some heathen heads!! It's been a long time since I got to show Islam's might!" Yelled the warrior-prophet, holding a scimitar up high as he advanced. He was clearly as eager for a fight as Leader Megatron, and he too liked to be right in the thick of the battle. Behind him, several other men also waved various forms of bladed weapons as they eagerly pushed their horses to keep up.

"Aha!" Megatron yelled back. "OPEN FIRE!"

The Decepticons, of course, figured they could just blast these upgraded, but still primitive-looking, jihadis into yet another realm without any problems at all. However, the opposition deflected most of the blasts with the flats of their swords, which were now imbued with divine energy that greatly strengthened their resistance - and greatly increased their cutting power. They soon closed the gap, and to the surprise of the Decepticons, turned out to be very competent warriors. It was quickly obvious how Islam had been able to be spread by the sword during its time of serious warfare, and the two sides were soon locked in earnest battle.

~~~~~~~~~

On the physical side of Megatron's giant divinely-produced portal, General Carjack waited with the Genocide Battalion. He was to come in and get rid of any large pockets of insurgents after the main force did its work. While his Battalion was revving with eagerness, Carjack himself didn't look too ready. Secretly, he figured that the order would not be coming today. If it was that easy to take over Heaven, he reasoned, someone would have done it long ago.

~~~~~~~~~

Coltan

Masher was initially furious when he heard about how his headquarters had been intentionally inundated with flood waters, but that was almost immediately overridden by his shock that there was even enough water to do that with. Soon, he got the whole story of how thunderstorms had covered the planet, but since the IOPC was unaware of the recent religious takeover of the other one, he had no easy pointers to say who had done it.

"Megatron left some of the water in space," his informant noted. "I passed it on the way out."

"Oh really? I say that Megatron oughta get dat back! In 'is mansion!" Masher immediately tried to warp it in there, only to find Megatron's force field blocking him. "Lemme know as soon as he gets ridda dat jammin'," Masher ordered. "He'll hafta take it down soon unless he wants ta hafta drink da whole output a' da Main Refinery."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bureau of Impossible Physics

It didn't take the Bureau long to construct the physical devices needed to replicate the anti-rain effect - without blocking Decepticon travel - once it had Replicator's drawing in its hands. Soon, workers were out placing the devices on already-existing towers, and when they were all up and activated, the planet would be properly protected from rainstorms.

[Vallermoore]

Tarantos

The last of the Popas, still wearing his fancy silk robes and jewelled mitre, was hauled up by a couple of human sized Forintel bots in front of Megatron. Some dictators liked to strip the conquered ruler of their fine clothes before execution, but there was no point in this case. If it was not clear that this was the Popa, there would be lots of unwanted rumours of his survival later. He looked up at Megatron sadly. "Clearly, the Saviour for my sins has handed my planet over to you. To the people of this country; my last orders before my execution are these; do what you are told. Obey the new rulers unless their orders are utterly idiotic, and become good Megatronists. Let the new religion flourish. I say this of my own free will, and with nothing to lose as I am going to die very soon. Please don't torture me to death; I was only trying to stay in power when I gave orders to destroy your robots. And I ask that my soul be granted free passage to the afterlife of those who believe heart and soul in the Saviour. Megatron; do what you have to do to me." Most leaders yammered and begged for mercy when Megatron blasted or hanged or otherwise executed them, but the Popa was different. He was ready to die and seemed not to mind, and he looked fearlessly at the great God that towered above him.

Later, over 90% of the holy objects would be handed over partly because of the Popa's call to obey the new rulers. Only a few would be secretly held back by diehard secret Saviourists. The churches would become Megatronist Temples, and the old stained glass would be replaced by new stained glass celebrating the new religion. It would be easier to make the new religion grow whilst some things were still the same. Whilst Easter was abolished, chocolate was not banned on that day, and Christmas, which to a point was openly celebrated even on Cybertron itself, would be changed but when it came to giving and getting gifts would still be legal. Banning it totally would make the people very unhappy.

When it came to weddings, it was decided to let all those who had been paid for before the invasion carry on, and then phase them out after one month. Likewise, currant burials could carry on for now as long as they had Megatronist trappings. , For now at least, old style burials carried on, but with Megatronist Priests supervising them to ensure the prayers for the soul were Megatronist. Rendering plants were to be built, but at least for now, noone was forced to use them for disposing of the dead. It really was not worth possibly starting a rebellion that the Decepticon Military and/or the Genocide Battalion would have to crush over a petty little thing like body disposal.

When it came to prisons and the old legal system, letting everyone out straight away and abolishing police, courts, and most laws would just cause huge disorder and riots all over the planet, so Megatron himself was politely asked how the change should be handled. Only the just three year old witness protection scheme was at once abolished. There was no way *that* insult to Megatronism could be allowed to carry on.

The vast majority of the population showed great willingness to obey their new rulers, but many temple-goers made clear their fear of an afterlife of eternal boredom making parts and asked their new Priests how that could be avoided.

*****
Cybertron

Loyal Star was awed at the opulence of the Megatron Mansion and it's Energon fountain, which had recovered from having lots of highly unwanted water dumped into it during what was being called the Great Flood of Cybertron. He felt very proud when Megatron said that it was only his lack of military service so far that prevented him being at once ordinated as a Priest on the spot. Short of some huge faux pas or a very unfortunate event, he would soon be a Priest like Fire Eater and a missionary for the Faith.

Above Cybertron, the normal brawls and attempted robberies stopped as by common consent the bots stopped moving and waited quietly to get in. No bot wanted to defeat his foe only to starve to death so close to home. As soon as they were able to enter and leave again, Cybertronian space became as dangerous and lawless as ever. No bots had starved to death, although a few unlucky ones had needed to use their batteries for a few minutes.

In Yahweh's Dimension

Soon enough after giving water to a human soul in exchange for directions, the ten bots reached the chasm and were joined by the Divisions coming from behind. They flew over the chasm with seemingly no opposition and were feeling a bit overconfident when a loud "ALLAHU AKBAR!" was heard. Flying towards them were Decepticon sized pegasui with equally sized humans on it carrying scimitars. One very overconfident Decepticon soldier transformed, laughed, left the ranks and opened fire, thinking the humans were helpless. He got a nasty shock when they deflected the blasts with their swords, and then cut his arms and blasters right off, forcing him to flee back to the Decepticon ranks. Until the mechanics could fix him, he was crippled-and very embarrassed at his unfortunate event. After three quarters of the holy jihadis had been killed, Muhammad and the rest left, having done a surprising amount of damage. Roughly one in ten bots had been damaged, and one in ten of those damaged bots was now a stream of data packets heading back to the Main Save Vault. General Thundercracker was in a high rage, dark eyed and revving with fury. "Look what those oversized biologicals did to me! They *keyed* me all the way down my side all the way to my Metal!"

The physical damage to General Thundercracker was in fact very slight, but the damage to his pride at being scraped by a sword held by a biological of all things was huge. Like all Decepticon generals, he fought in the front line.

Suddenly it began to pour with rain and lightning and thunder started. This was not Cybertron, this was Yahweh's territory. The bots with deep sword wounds in their armour were in danger of a possible short out and called for help from their fellow bots. They wanted to carry on fighting, not go back to the Main Save Vault in a stream of data packets.

Clearly there was more danger ahead of some kind. The fighting was not over, and they still had quite a way to go to get to Yahweh.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Portal Asteroid
Carjack jumped when his communicator went off. Soon, he was listening to Megatron crow about the Military's first victory - and being ordered to come in with his Battalion for mopping-up operations. After closing the connection, Carjack cursed. He expected that getting in would be easy, but that it would take a lot of falderal to get the portal back open when it was time to go.

"Alright everybody," he announced to his eagerly-revving horde. "Our first stop is going to be close to the chasm separating our entry point from the next area. There, we need to find and delete a bunch of Decepticon-sized human bull ants with upgraded blades. Most of them have been deleted already, but a large number escaped. We need to get rid of them so they can't come up on the others from the rear when they meet their next challenge. From what I was told, standard tactics should work as long as we remember that the enemy's swords are effective against metal. We'll also have to fire so we aim for two spots on each enemy's body at once so that he can't parry both blasts."

"Other than that, I have one order in particular, and that's for the last ones through the portal to hang a pipe, cord, or something else like that through it from our side. I know how these sorts of realms work. That portal is going to try to close on us and lock us on the Hell side, and it'll help immensely if we can keep some sort of thing there as a beacon. Now, all that said: Genociders, today we paint Paradise in the blown-up energy of the opposition!"

With that, General Carjack jumped into the portal before transforming to plane mode. Behind him, Cybertron's most psychopathic and bloodthirsty soldiers followed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The arrival of the Genocide Battalion into the hell-like realm was not peaceful for its inhabitants like the arrival of the Decepticons' first wave. Many Genociders opened fire on random people just for the lulz, and their bodies burst into open flames upon deactivation. They did, however, seem to die just like someone in a physical body would.

"Hey-hey, look at them get obliterated! There's nowhere for them to go now!" One gleefully announced over his radio.

"Nonsense," Carjack said, already weary at the assumptions of muggles. "There are actually many realms for the dead. When someone gets killed out of one, he gets reactivated in a different one. The specifics vary - sometimes they appear as adults, and in other places, they arrive as babies. In a nutshell, though, it can be said that physics' law of conservation applies to souls. Many things can be done with one, but it is never truly obliterated. Even so, someone who gets killed in a place like this should be effectively dead, just as if you did it in the physical dimension. Just remember that, that includes you! So be on your guard."

Soon, they arrived at the chasm, where the Rich Man was now openly cheering the Decepticon Forces. Even if he never got out of his position of punishment, he quite enjoyed seeing those "uppity fools" on the other side get steamrolled. The Genociders flew over him, and when they saw that he was rooting for them, they tipped their wings instead of blasting. They headed over the chasm without slowing down, but once on the other side, they did drop much of their speed. Their leader was now using his onboard remote viewing ability to sense where the jihadis went, along with their current numbers, strength, and mindset.

Before long, Carjack banked to the right. "Their leader is amazed that he lost, and his troops are all mad as hell. Expect a giant battle when we catch up. As usual, the mission is straightforward. We are the Genociders, and they are our first targets! Leave no man from their army alive!!"

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

Ahead of the Genociders, the First Wave was flying ever forward, now completely on guard for the next group to challenge them. They didn't have to wait long. As if they were flying through history itself, they soon found themselves facing a larger, but more ragtag, group of divinely-enlarged humans: Those of the Crusades. Many of these people didn't seem to be nearly as holy as the first group, and in fact, some seemed to have been drafted from somewhere else for the occasion.

"Look there!" Human voices rang out. "It's true! The Lord has sent us free metal to loot!"
"What the heck are they? Since when could metal fly in the air?!"
"It is not ours to question the gifts of our Lord! It is surely full of gold for us to take back to our realms! We'll have enough to pave the streets!"
"I'm from THIS realm. Gold isn't needed here. Just concentrate on getting rid of the invaders!"

Then, together, they all yelled "DEUS VULT!" and charged. Defeating the actual trained warriors in the group would be harder - they had armored horses and long pikes, and some wore armor themselves as well. Many, however, were much like the raiders that accompanied normal Decepticon assaults - numerous and dedicated, but not too disciplined.

Somewhere in the Crusader horde, which seemed to be made up of former participants in all of the Crusades combined, were former leaders of the various early Christian war initiatives of Earth. Most prominent was Pope Urban II, who got the whole idea going. Now, he was exhorting the forces by shouting out how they had all indeed gone to good realms for their original participation, and claiming that they would reach an even greater heaven by chasing off the invaders.

Notably, not all of the members of this horde were old-fashioned. Some evangelicals from the time of the Decepticon invasion of Earth were also present! These had always believed that the really-old days, when people went to war to spread the Word, were the best and had longed to return to them. The ability to actually participate in such an action was their reward - a reward that some were glad to get, but others wished they could return.

~~~~~~~~

Before the battle started, Leader Megatron decided that it was time to up the ante even more. He summoned 500,000,000 more troops, which swarmed through his giant portal en masse and soon caught up to him. Megatron had figured that, by the looks of the current pattern, the level of opposition would increase as he reached his ultimate goal. "We shall splatter these humans like we did when we invaded their planet!" he exhorted the new troops. "We shall show the competition that a few billion factory-builts have nothing on half-a-billion properly-built, well-coded, Decepticon warriors!"

~~~~~~~~

Coltan

Masher waited eagerly as he got reports that the divine force field was being replaced with a mundane one. He was just as pleased to learn that Megatron, along with a significant advance force, had gone off to a far-away government-run asteroid and disappeared.

Before, when he considered the idea of taking over Cybertron, he had concluded that the time wasn't right. Now, however, he had reliable scouts reporting that the Leader AND his High Generals AND a large number of troops were no longer even in the same realm!

First, Masher took the victory he knew he could get. As soon as the mundane shield went up, he used his own demigod power to warp Megatron's spare water into his mansion, where it immediately flooded everything and saturated the new Save Disks that were hidden within. Disks could be salvaged from water damage for a while - and if dried quickly, would run just fine - but if they stayed wet long enough, it would take better and better forensic data recovery skills to do it.

Then, he decided that now was the time to go for it. Now was the time to make a real attempt to eliminate the current Decepticon government entirely, and take over Cybertron! With massive rainstorms, floods, the absence of the government, and the absence of a large number of troops, the people would be more apt to go along with a regime change than ever before.

Soon, he discovered that even though the Research Asteroid was involved, the size of the portal had been greatly enlarged. Not only that, 500,000,000 more troops had just gone through. If he acted now, but failed to close the portal, those troops would turn around and smash him not just into atoms, but split pieces of atoms. The mob boss waited, like a coiled viper, for Cybertron's military strength to get further away so he could make his move and try to slam the portal closed on them.

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

Tarantos
Earlier

"I am pleased that you are not whimpering and cowering like a dog," Megatron admitted. "However, I think your faith is misplaced. It won't be long before I am in control of whatever realm you figure you're going to. However, I will honor your request for your soul's passage over to Yahweh's control. I hope you are as sinless - or as forgiven - as you seem to think you are."

After being given a couple of moments to consider that, Megatron went ahead with the execution, choosing to have the Popa shot rather than hanged or breaking his neck. In many cultures, the punishment of hanging was used on the worst criminals, and he didn't think such a brave man should be overly disgraced. Still, he also wasn't going to leave a giant nexus of rebellion alive to come after him later, so the Popa had to go.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Overall, life on Tarantos changed, but for now it was just different rather than being either improved or made worse. Everyone was already used to mandatory Church attendance, so mandatory Temple attendance wasn't a big shock. However, the Temple Priests were already busy undoing what they saw as self-harmful teachings, such as the one about it being somehow good to let other people walk all over you. This, they taught, was an abomination to sapient dignity! Other such aspects of the Saviorist Bible, especially one that said that God was in favor of weak people, were dealt with even more harshly. Priests often tore that specific page out of the book and burned it before their congregations, saying that any true god wanted strong followers.

What the Priests didn't know, or particularly care to know, was that passages like that didn't actually come from Yahweh. They'd been added in by kings who didn't want to get revolted on when their bad leadership and lousy economics skills made their people poor and frail. Later, the Popas saw that such beliefs helped them stay in power too, so they left the passages in there.

The High Priests, on the other hand, were far less dismissive of the idea of finding out exactly who wrote what and when. They went through the Church's secret vaults and libraries, and meticulously and cataloged all of the included documents and items. There, they found evidence of subterfuge, religious corruption, and misdeeds dating back over 2,500 years - almost from the moment the Church became an organized political force instead of a few small bands of believers. Evidence also existed for good deeds, such as starting and operating charities and hospitals, running monastically-based scientific research centers, and similar things. All of these facts were relayed to the Decepticon Bureau of Propaganda, which would package them into press releases that would present the church as an institution that started out with good intentions, but that was slowly but surely overcome with poisonous double-dealing as time went on until it was actively harmful to take its claims at anything approaching face value.

"Do you think Megatron will do the same thing?" The High Priests asked each other as the big picture became clear.

"It's Megatron! And this is deceptive connivery!" One responded as if a yes was a no-boarder.

"But Megatron has never messed with his own official stances," others said. "We can all see that the Speech at the Founding of the Nation is still word-for-word what it was when he first gave it. If you ask some old guy, he can pull the original right out of his direct-experience memory and recite it to you. And Megatron has always been proud of his ability to just say what he really means, and then handle the duels that result from those who disagree. He has no need to resort to such wimpish rewriting! Plus, he'd be rewriting himself. As the source author, he has no need to do that. He'd just give a new decree if he wanted to change something."

"That's not all," another historian-priest chimed in. "He always makes sure that people have at least basic education. This sort of con here only works when most of the people are illiterate, or at least were for the biggest part of their history. If anything, Megatron will order adult literacy programs to be started once he gets back. He always says that one can't be a good Decepticon if one is as stupid as the marks, and he wants these people to be good Megatronists rather than cattle. To be a good Megatronist is to be a good Decepticon. It will not bring him glory or strength to have 5 billion suckers chanting his name."

The crew went back to work, marveling at how much the Church had changed the original Word, how it adjusted things so that the Official Document was only part of the canon, and how Yahweh had allowed all of this to go on. One thing they did know was that if someone tried that with Megatronism, there would be no wondering what the response was (if any) or whether or not a response would actually come. The blasphemer would be executed on live holovision immediately upon detection, just like one who tried to corrode the Decepticon Way on Cybertron.

~~~~~~~~

Heaven's Actual Gate

Far from Megatron's detection range, in another realm, the Popa appeared before a huge gate with a glowing man standing next to it. Mists rose up in the area, giving it the illusion of being made of clouds even though it was actually far more stable.

"I am Rockman," the guard said. On another planet, he was known by a name that meant much the same thing: Peter. "I presume you are seeking entry into Heaven?"

"That's right, sir," Popa said, standing tall. "I have stood for the Church since I was but a small boy, and led it until an infidel managed to take it over. I know not why our Lord didn't make an obvious appearance to save it from being converted to the spaceman's heathenism, but I can say that I remained loyal to the end."

Rockman gave him the look one gives a bald-faced liar. "Oh, really? Then the $10,000,000 that you redirected to purchasing and staffing a yacht, that was to glorify the Lord?" He raised an accusing eyebrow. "And what of Jacobinson, who you arranged to have framed for blasphemy when he was set to become Popa instead of you? That false witness was a sign of loyalty? And, what of your dalliances with altar boys who didn't want to dally with you."

Popa began to stutter out excuses, but Rockman was already looking into a big book. "There is no record of repentance for any of these acts, or for the 1,150 others you did that caused direct detriment to Faith and Church, or for the other 5,000 you did that affected fewer people. Instead, the Book of Records shows that you were quite smug that by becoming Popa, you would be automatically forgiven. This viewpoint is not part of Saviorism at all. It came only from your own mind. And even now, you are trying to excuse your behavior rather than repent of it."

Rockman pulled out another, much smaller, tome. "This is the Book of Life." He handed it over. "See for yourself whether or not your name is in it."

The Popa leafed through, and for a moment, he looked quite ecstatic. But then, he looked closer. Many names were listed starting with "Popa" - Popa Emmanual, Popa Abraham III, Popa... There were a good 20 Popas listed, but his own name was not among them.

"You have sealed your own fate," Rockman said, "and now, it is time for you to meet it."

A trapdoor opened, and the Last Popa fell through, down, down, down, into another realm. He braced for the feeling of flames, but instead, felt bone-biting coldness and the feeling of crashing to the ground. The Lake of Fire, it turned out, was indeed a myth. Hell - at least the one he was sent to - was a cold place. A cold, snowy, barren wasteland that stretched on forever...

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

MasterBlaster sat at the bar and ordered a cylinder of Standard. He'd made sure to leave his tank fairly empty so that he could drink in multiple establishment if he needed to do so in order to find what he was looking for.

He ended up having to repeat this at two more Quick Drinks before he heard what he had hoped to: A gang discussing how their last raid yielded no oil because of the "incompetence" of their leader. "That refinery hadn't been operating for 5 or 10 years!" One was saying over a cup of Low Standard. "Any idiot could have seen that!"

"Oh, it'll be a safe landing!" Another mocked. "Yeah, because the military there wasn't bothering to protect such a useless derelict installation!"

"We barely made it back because the fool said we wouldn't have to fill our spare tanks."

"Here, get this. Before he went to hide in his shack, he was telling me that raiding this place would turn out better." He showed a foil-paper with a picture printed on it. "It's supposed to be connected to a big pipeline from the heavily-guarded field a hundred miles away. But look at the pipeline!" The pipeline appeared to be corroded and possibly no longer in use. "Do you trust this? I sure don't! I say it's time we boot him and then decide on one of us to lead!"

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

When water suddenly gushed into the Megatron Mansions of all places, Loyal Star managed to blast a large window and get out just in time. Behind him, the inner guards, who had not minded him using his crystal to scry, much to his surprise, were buried under water and shorted out. All manner of Save Discs, other discs, computer games, holovisions and various electrical goods were ruined by the water. Megatron would be very angry when he came back and found his Mansion totally flooded and almost everything inside ruined. Loyal Star's engine suddenly ran with fear. What if he, the only stranger in the Megatron Mansion, was blamed for this dreadful act? What if his God thought it was him and either had him melted down alive or personally came after him with his fusion cannon? He decided that he had to get to the nearest Domintel station and tell them what happened and request a code read so it was clear that he had not committed this act of high treason against Megatron. He was very aware as his alarm was going off that he was in a forbidden part of Cybertron, and as it was, a couple of uniformed Domintel found him before he found them.

"Megatron's Mansion flooded with water! I only just got out in time. I was invited there by Megatron himself after I helped in a small way to remove the rain, and not long afterwards the place spontaneously flooded. I request a code-read to clear my name, as I know what you must be thinking. Don't worry, I'll come quietly."

Not only was the Mansion flooded, but the water was getting in under the doors of some very exclusive houses and shops, at the level of a Decepticon waist. Very expensive bodies worth many millions of Cubes in very exclusive shops were being wrecked. Curses and swear words in very upper class Binary were uttered. Whilst there was only a tenth of the water then there had been in the previous flood, it had appeared as a solid block and spread outwards from there though the most high-class district on Cybertron, shorting out the legs of bots who could not jet out of the way in time and flowing into fine mansions. At least one bot who was busy building an offspring got out in time but his unborn offspring was effectively aborted, lost under the water.

**********
MasterBlaster approached the bots with care and asked them politely, stroking his blasters, "Would you like me to help you rid yourself of your unwanted gang leader?" If they declined he would need to look elsewhere.

**********
Portal Asteroid/Heavenly Realms

The Genocide Battalion were eager to do battle, revving with the sheer joy of it, and would have been very surprised if they knew how their General really felt. When they saw a biological clearly on their side, rather then blast him they tipped their wings in salute, quite possibly the first time in their entire history that they saluted a biological. Soon enough they located the jihadis on their flying horses and a massive battle broke out. In the previous battle, the bots had made the mistake of underestimating the jihadis, and some were in the Main Save Vault because of it. If the Heavenly World had jammers on, they would have been outright killed. Each member of the Genociders targeted one jihadi at once with both blasters, and most of them fell before getting close, but a handful did make contact. Two Genociders went back as data packet streams, a few had deep wounds, and even Carjack got a little scratch in the chest region that went through the hardest armour plate like it was butter. Only Muhammad and a handful of warriors were left now, and he shouted out "I curse you invaders with the cold! May you freeze here!"

At once it started to get colder in that area as if a dragon-sized Windigo was present, and the words Carjack said in return were anything but nice. He hated the cold, and now he was having to fly through it. His eyes were too dark for a biological to read by.

*****
The Decepticons now found themselves facing heavily armed and armoured Decepticon sized knights and their lesser hangers on. This time they knew well, that these primitive weapons were perfectly capable of cutting them. Even Megatron was not immune to possible damage. They also found themselves facing arrows as well, and General Soundwave got one in his chest, doing damage to one of his many motion boards. For every Decepticon who ended up in data packet form, very many of his foes fell, but as the Decepticons only had a Cube or two of Energon per bot, lack of fuel would soon start to be a problem. A bot on the verge of starving to death would have to mind transfer or die for real. As a God, Megatron was immune to this but no other bot was.

The new evangelicals had rifles and pistols and in this realm, these large bullets could be a real menace. One of them shot at Megatron himself.

*****
Coltan

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" In his mind's eye Masher saw the damage the water was doing to the Megatron Mansion and in a lesser way, to the Government District. "Red Diamond-gather as many Coltanis as you can-for soon we will take the glorious Metal Planet for ourselves." Even though his messing with their upgrades had lowered his popularity a bit, most Coltanis still liked him and would follow him almost anywhere. He looked forward to the speech he would make to them before their attack on the Metal Planet-an attack he had once put the kibosh very firmly on.

Tarantos
Earlier

Megatron was politely surprised by the Popa's attitude to being executed. The Popa had urged his people to do what they were told, had not begged for mercy even once, and Megatron had to admit to himself that he too would have fought back had Cybertron been on the wrong end of a takeover. Whilst there was no question that the Popa had to die, his end would be quick. Such a brave ruler did not deserve being tortured to death.

"I am pleased that you are not whimpering and cowering like a dog," Megatron told him. "However, I think your faith is misplaced. It won't be long before I am in control of whatever realm you figure you're going to. However, I will honor your request for your soul's passage over to Yahweh's control. I hope you are as sinless - or as forgiven - as you seem to think you are." It was a human firing squad who killed the Popa, and his body was one of the last to have the prayers of the Saviour said over it as a mark of respect before burial.

At first, not all that much changed. Most laws and institutions still remained as they were. This was a pleasant surprise to the people, many of which had feared that their new rulers would be very cruel. This lack of nastiness made resistance almost non-existent. Police still chased criminals, people still had weddings and funerals and coupledoms and went about their normal lives.


Heaven's Actual Gate

After a moment of pain, the soul of the Popa, rather then being slammed into a soul gem, appeared at the Holy Gates, facing Saint Rockman/Saint Peter. "I am Rockman. I presume you are seeking entry into Heaven?" The Popa said yes and found to his dismay that it was not to be. Although Megatron had deliberately not blocked his entry into Heaven, his own sins had. Expecting fire, he found himself in everlasting cold along with the sinful of Saviourism. As a spirit, he would not die. Although he didn't know it, Carjack and his regiment were now encountering the same chill elsewhere.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

"We're Domestic Intelligence," one of the agents said with a combination of dismay and disdain at the idea that this person thought that they might actually make a mistake about who was to blame for something. "There's certainly no need for us to code-read you. We're the agency that delivered Megatron's invitation to you!"

"We're providing some extra security," the other one said. "But since you're here, let's see this scrying crystal in action. As of now, you are an Important Investigation Subject. As such, your cooperation is required. And what we need to investigate is simple. Use your crystal to show us the one called Masher, of the Interplanetary Oil Procurement Corporation."

It was rare that DomIntel involved others in its investigations unless they were suspects, but it was even rarer for them to have a chance to take a peek at a prime suspect without even using standard surveillance equipment. By looking now, they figured, they could catch Masher in the act of gloating and thereby rule out the possibility of another truly divine flooding incident.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Throughout the Government District, plenty of cursing was happening. Loyal Star realized how quickly he'd become used to the normal coarseness of Decepticon speech when he caught himself thinking of the accents he'd heard as "very upper class." In reality, the high-ranking government people were rather coarse compared to what would be expected of, say, Earthians in the same general ranks. Their Binary was, however, more educated than that of the average Meltdown's, so there were fewer grammar shortcuts as they proceeded to curse like sailors. They also tended to be more creative in their cursing, expressing desires to drip the water slowly onto the perpetrator's RAM banks chip by chip, or grind them up in a big metal grinder and then use the shreddings for sculptures.

The one whose partially-built offspring was destroyed was only angry about the lost work and parts involved. He had a copy of the Code memorized in a non-executable format, so once he got a body ready, he could just upload the Code part and then make the adjustments needed that would allow it to actually run. Decepticon reproduction was far more flexible than that of biologicals, and in this case, that was a very good thing.

~~~~~~~~~~

Heavenly Realms

Carjack cursed the cold, but then remembered that his Leader was here to enforce his claim of divinity. Now would be a good time to call him on that!

"In the name of Divine Leader Megatron, I command that this cold leave me and the equivalent amount of heat hit that guy!" Carjack yelled out in response to Mohammad's curse.

Several miles ahead, Megatron's engine revved angrily. He didn't want to spend energy on stuff like that now! Yet, he'd just seen how an entire planet had come over to him specifically because of a lack of divine response. Now would be a good time to show that HE wouldn't leave anyone wondering.

With some effort, Megatron transmitted hot breezes into the area and then used magic to blast Mohammad with about 1,000 degrees of heat. Now, it became apparent that there was indeed another force at work - the area didn't heat up, nor did the human turn to ashes. The two entities were doing their best to outdo each other, but Megatron's best efforts weren't causing warmth to come. Carjack, recognizing the other entity's energy signature as that of Yahweh, directed his troops to land. He didn't say anything about who he thought would win, but he got a thick insulative cloth out of his thigh panel and draped it over his wings.

Mohammad marched over. "What are you doing fighting for that djinn!" He demanded. "You know he will lose! That's why you've put on your cloak, it's because you know it isn't going to be getting hot here!"

"Megatron is NOT a djinn!" Carjack retorted angrily. "He is a genuine Cybertronian robot and entirely self-directed! If I detected a djinn's work, I would be blasting that djinn for all I was worth! I fight for Megatron because he is the one who freed me from the shackles of my humanity, and because he has been an excellent leader. I can't abandon him now, just because he sometimes follows the philosophy of 'bite off more than you can chew, and then chew like hell!' Plus, didn't people tell you that it was impossible to defeat Mecca, and to give it up and worship the old gods? Who is to say that Megatron absolutely cannot win..."

"Not a djinn! Of course he is one. Or is possessed by one!" The Prophet began to list several signs of possession, but Carjack shot them all down.

"If it is a mistake, it is his own," Carjack insisted. "But enough talking. We are both here for business. Let us duel; I am sure that conceding is not on your agenda, nor is it on mine."

Just as they were about to begin single combat, a massive fire was heard. They both looked, and saw a giant slag pit burner that had just fired up. Slowly but surely, the brute force power of the fire heated the area back up.

Carjack, knowing that those usually ran on thousands of Cubes of Energon, was momentarily distracted. His distraction was interrupted by the sickening feeling of metal cutting through his neck, and he was lucky that Decepticon necks don't contain anything all that important except at the very back. Angrily, he turned and blasted Mohammad right in the chest, and in an instant, secured the victory. Meanwhile, his other troops took care of the last remnant of the jihadis.

Once that was done, Carjack looked more closely at the pit burner. It turned out that it was being fired by loads of trees, the bodies of the defeated, and other combustibles from the immediate area. As soon as the battle was surely done, however, the fire quickly went out. Left behind was a burner-like device that, itself, was made from ceramics that came from the ground right underneath it.

Just as Carjack and the Genociders were looking at that, they heard a loud WHOOM and the area was suddenly lit red. Now, there before them - and consuming the original apparatus - was a giant pillar of fire reaching from the ground up into the sky as far as the eye could see. The area instantly became about 50 degrees hotter than Earth's equator. A loud voice boomed from the sky: "Behold the power of the One God!"

Fear was unknown to the Genocide Battalion, but the ability to calculate a victory chance was not. According to their calculations, they would get totally pwned if this "competition," the One God, decided to get serious. They all backed off quite a ways, not wanting to engage this force yet not ready to outright commit treason against Megatron by routing, either.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Up ahead, Megatron realized that there seemed to be no oil in the detectable area. Even worse, there also seemed to be no ethanol distilleries. The only area producing ethanol was a vineyard, and wine was far less alcoholic than what was required for emergency fuel.

"Attention, Decepticons. We are under Condition 10. Repeat, Condition 10." Megatron's voice came over the radio. This code meant that there was insufficient local fuel to continue an operation beyond one day. The troops were to wreak as much destruction as possible until then, and then return to Cybertron. In short, it would now be a raid rather than a proper territory-seizing invasion - assuming, of course, that they didn't get through Heaven's Actual Gates before then. If they did get to it, he would go ahead and call in the Military's compliment of cargo-bots to bring loads of Energon, and only send back the number of troops that couldn't be supplied by that amount of fuel.

Secretly, he was becoming a bit less confident. It had taken a quick shift in strategy to bring heat to that area, and wayyy more effort than he'd expected. His internal war-chance calculator had shot into the equivalent of the red-orange zone in an instant as it recalculated enemy strength to include the direct intervention of Yahweh and the perceived power behind said intervention.

Now, however, was not the time for further consideration. Someone was shooting at him with a gun that was so enlarged that the bullets were like missiles! Megatron used his divine power and easily deflected the projectile, but found more bullets coming right after it. Quickly, he used his multithreading to concentrate some energy on putting up a force field while using the rest of his mind-power to aim and fire his fusion cannon.

Thanks to the fusion cannon, the enemies began to lose quite quickly. Once they finally retreated, he once again radioed Carjack and told him to move on in. Then, he ordered the huge force that had arrived into a new formation - one that occupied several different altitutudes - and told the troops to be on their guard.

"The last major Abrahamic war that involved a strong religious aspect, at least that I know of, was the invasion of South America by the Conquistadors," Megatron said. "They wanted land, money, and power, but they also spread Christianity by force of arms. They had horses and guns. They also were able to form alliances with the enemies of their first targets, but that won't do them any good here. They~"

Megatron's pre-battle speech was cut off by the arrival of said Conquistadors - and by bullets flying in from their direction - but to the Spaniards' surprise, the Decepticon Forces were now ready for this sort of opposition. Half a billion troops, now spread out so that each one was able to fire without hitting other Decepticons, opened up on the incoming horde and showed it why blasters are better than firearms. The Spaniards were able to shoot down a few of the troops, but with so many shooting back, the battle was over within minutes.

"Now THAT'S more like it!" Megatron said approvingly.

With the last of Earth's Historic Forces down, the Decepticons had easy flying for quite some time. Then, they came across an army that didn't officially fight for religious reasons. Instead, it fought for more mundane things - the thrill of the fight, scholarships, oil, and to kill dictators who were no longer suitable as puppet leaders! More importantly, some of these troops were in this realm after having fought none other than Leader Megatron himself.

"OOOH-RAH!!"

It was the last thing Megatron wanted to hear in a realm where soldiers were enlarged to meet his size.

"Patreus! So we meet again!" Megatron yelled out, naming the US general in charge of that country's defense during the Invasion of Earth. "And now, prepare to get steamrolled by my hordes AGAIN!!"

There were no swords in sight as this battle commenced. Instead, infinite missiles shot up from SAM batteries - missiles that were now perpetually replaced with new ones as soon as they were fired. Drones zoomed into the air, controlled by young gamers. Thousands of manned fighter planes came onto the scene, now outfitted with light but strong anti-blast armor.

"Who says that stewing about a loss comes to no good!?" Patreus yelled over his radio. "I've been thinking of how to defeat you for the last 200 years. Taste the fruits of our development!"

Megatron couldn't rely on his old standby - the enemy running out of ordnance - now that Yahweh was busily cranking out infinite copies of it. The Decepticons would have to blow up every SAM battery, and possibly every battery operator, before they could rule the skies. Landing was also a bad idea thanks to thousands and thousands of ground troops being present. Finally, he gave the order: the Decepticons would have to swarm them with a bomber contingent. This would entail taking losses as an inevitable consequence.

After checking to make sure the path to the Save Vault was open, 50,000,000 bombers took positions and then flew over the opposing forces dropping their payloads. Thousands were shot out of the air by the SAMs, drones, and fighter planes, but much like in wars in the physical dimension, the falling debris ended up damaging the enemy severely. Of course, bombs were dropping as well.

This battle was very brutal, but very quick. While the ordnance had been turned into an infinite supply, the opposing soldiers themselves had not - and with 50,000,000 bombers attacking, it wasn't long before there weren't many enemy troops left. The Decepticons blasted the few remaining humans from the air without landing and swarmed on, now more confident than ever.

"These should be the last of the humants!" General Thundercracker said over the radio. The other generals agreed. They had made it through the gamut of religious warriors and saved regular warriors. Soon, they thought, they would be in the final battle and win!

That's when they saw a huge wall of energy in front of them.

The Decepticons would have flown smack into this strange thing, to unknown consequences, if it wasn't for the time they spent training their swarming maneuvers. Like a massive flock of agile birds, they turned sharply in all directions and then went seamlessly into a circling maneuver. Soon, they all landed and awaited their leader's further orders.

As Megatron looked at the energy, he realized that it wasn't a true wall. Instead, it was a field of energy reaching as high and wide as he could see. To test it, he took a clod of ground and tossed it at the field. The dirt disappeared through the energy and could be heard to land on the other side.

Suddenly, a different sort of being melded through the energy wall.

"You are wondering if you'll be flying into a trap," it said. "We wouldn't consider it a trap. In fact, I have been sent to inform you of exactly what you'll be entering. This is the First Major Border Control Point. If you go through without authorization - which you most certainly do not have - you will face Heavenly Army Platoon #100. You have heard the stories of the Heavenly Army being able to fight off all of the armies of Earth, I am sure."

"Defeating all of the armies of that puny planet wasn't a lot of work either when I did it the first time or just now," Megatron scoffed. "So I'm not too impressed at a claim of being able to do that!"

The angel didn't show a smirk, but his energy pattern changed as if he was thinking it. Without a word, the angel backed through the wall and disappeared.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Coltan

After considering it a bit more, Masher told Red Diamond to hold off on making any announcements just yet. He wanted to have that portal closed before getting everyone excited.

Once he detected that the Decepticon Forces were too far in to just turn around and blast him, Masher began to try to close the portal. Unfortunately for him, it didn't budge. He didn't realize it, but his attempts did immediately trigger an alarm Megatron had set up. Far into the Heavenly Realms, Megatron got the warning and increased his efforts.

To Masher's shock, a being - invisible to the muggle eye - appeared near him. His Quantum Processor immediately registered the darker-than-night energy of the newcomer and identified it as an evil entity - an extremely evil entity. The entity, however, did not hang around. It flew toward the portal, only to have the portal close on him before he could get through.

Masher's response could only be described as "CHA CHING."

"Rally the troops!" Masher ordered Red Diamond over the radio, not knowing or caring why the portal slammed shut. "But don't send 'em just yet. First, have Advertising tell Cybertron all about why da planet needs a NEW god. A god who won't get the planet blasted wit' wata an' who knows what else!"

Just then, Masher's anti-hacking alarms went off. It was immediately clear that the evil being he had detected was trying to take him over! Instantly, he found himself in a battle of wills against what he soon realized was a surprisingly dim, but very determined and hard-headed, enemy that was immune to mundane blasting.

Masher reached for his left calf panel and took out a soul-catching device that one of his operatives had misappropriated from the Soul-Powered Energon Project. He might not have been as powerful as Megatron's big competitor, but his mindset was far different. To him, and pretty much every other Decepticon, it was a no-boarder to delete this pest, Satan, and any other enemies that happened to show up. He fired up the device while still using most of his quantum cores to defend against the possession attempts.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Quick Drink, Cybertron

MasterBlaster had apparently found a gang ripe for taking over, but first he would have to convince them that he should be the new leader. This would likely involve making a pitch and then fighting against all challengers. He would also have to get rid of their old leader, and do so in a way that ensured that they knew it was him.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

The eyes of the Domestic Intelligence agents dimmed with annoyance, but they knew he was an immigrant and was not being deliberately obnoxious. When they asked him to activate the crystal for them he did so happily. "Crystal, show them the Masher they are looking for." Within seconds the image of Masher swam into view and Loyal Star gently passed the quartz crystal to one of the agents. Masher, who thought himself totally safe from Domintel and Forintel behind his force field, was laughing out loud at what had happened. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Let's see how he likes his Mansion flooded out with water when he gets back home. If he gets back home. That'll teach him not to kick me off Cybertron and flood the IOPC Headquarters." Masher turned to Red Diamond, who was as loyal to Masher as General Carjack was to Megatron. "Hold off on readying the troops, I need to somehow shut that portal." Suddenly his eyes glowed a bright clear red. "Rally the troops! But don't send 'em just yet. First, have Advertising tell Cybertron all about why da planet needs a NEW god. A god who won't get the planet blasted wit' wata an' who knows what else!" All of this because of Loyal Star's scrying crystal was being viewed by Domintel agents, and in a true emergency of this kind, with firm evidence of it, they could call General Soundwave, head of Domintel and Forintel. They hoped they could get in touch with him.

"This is Agent 01567 calling General Soundwave! Masher has flooded the Megatron Mansion with water and he is planning a direct attack with the Coltanis against the Metal Planet to try and take it for himself, with an advertising blitz of advertising propaganda first. We got this information through Loyal Star's crystal scrying device with his full cooperation." The other agent called the most senior Domintel officer still on Cybertron with the news, just in case the message to Soundwave never reached him. If Megatron and Soundwave were unable to get back quickly to face this emergency, the Domintel officer was allowed to do everything necessary to deal with the threat except using the most secret weapons such as the Ignore Cannon Array. Some secret police forces were too rigid for that, but in a true emergency where communication was down with the top brass, Domintel could act by itself to foil an invasion or plot, rather then let the invasion or plot succeed.

Loyal Star looked on, happy to in a small way be helping the defence of Cybertron. This would surely help his ordination chances still further, if his crystal helped foil Masher's invasion. His fans ran softly as he remembered when his former pony self had renounced Ponyism in public and met Fire Eater for the first time, and converted to a far better religion. He knew Domintel might decide to confiscate his scrying crystal and was prepared for that if it happened. All around them the air was still ringing out with curses in clipped *posh* Binary as very wealthy bots had to sweep the water out with brooms or boil it away with blasters. With Megatron away, there would be a small rust infestation for sure in the Government District of all places, costing many thousands of Cubes to deal with. Down below, a number of vaults full of Energon and rare treasures had their locks ruined. And a few of the rich bots decided to raid them or at least try to. Raiding even a vault of Megatron's was not treason, although if Megatron found out who did it, the thief could expect a fusion cannon blast to the face.

*****
Coltan

Masher's anti hacking alarms went off and after a short battle of wills, Satan left when he realized he could easily be captured and looked for a Coltani that he might be able to possess.

Advertising started trying to put it's own messages onto Cybertronian Holovision, blaming Megatron for the flooding and trying to turn the Decepticons against him. Because of Loyal Star's scrying crystal giving advance warning, Domintel was able, at least for now, to jam Coltan's broadcasts quickly. A war of radio waves broke out between Advertising and Domintel.

Meanwhile Red Diamond and Masher himself started calling the Coltanis to prepare for battle, telling them that this time the Metal Planet and everything in it would soon be theirs. Many millions of Coltanis began preparing for the attack.

Heavenly Realms

After a sharp argument between Muhammad and Carjack, the two were about to duel with divine scimitar against blasters when they were distracted by a pit burner magically appearing and starting up. If Carjack's armour had been a bit weaker, he would have become headless, and whilst not all the mind boards were in the head, losing some of them as well as his speech and sight would have been a major PITA. As it was, it hurt, and he would need to fix it soon, but he was able to blast Muhammad and kill him in this realm. Had it been in the mortal realm, Islam would have started falling apart like Ponyism was, wherever Islam still existed, but sadly here that was not the case.

When a huge even by Decepticon Standards pillar of fire cremated the burner and slightly scorched the Genocide Battalion's paint, and a loud voice boomed "Behold the power of the One God!" they started imagining at best ending up back in the Main Save Vault, and at worst, destroyed and their souls being tortured in this being's Hell, with Megatron unable to rescue them. They did not rout; Genociders did not allow themselves to feel fear, they did not want to let Carjack or Megatron down, and cowardice in battle was high treason, but they backed off into a defensive position.

*****
Now that the Decepticons new what to expect, only a handful were destroyed and a few more damaged by the Conquistadors, but Megatron had a nasty shock when he realized that instead of going to the Main Save Vault, the five dead bots went to the Decepticon afterlife! As he could feel no jamming, that meant that someone or something had shut the portal back to their world, but he said nothing about that yet. When the fight happened with the marines, the bots who fell were ending up assigned for the most part to the Land of Endless Energon instead of the Main Save Vault. At least they went not ending up in Yahweh's hell, but if they carried on closer and closer to Yahweh himself that was a distinct possibility. Megatron had to somehow get them out before they all starved.

*****
Quick Drink, Cybertron

"Let me join you and help you defeat that useless hunk of junk. Where is he anyway?" MasterBlaster asked, preparing all his systems for battle.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

The agent's fears were soon confirmed. There was no response from General Soundwave. Since he was on the other side of a now-closed aetherial portal, the signal didn't get through.

Soon, alarms were set off at DomIntel Headquarters. The planet and regime were in danger, and communication between agents and High Command had been cut. This activated the protocol for a committee, formed of the next layer of DomIntel management, to meet. Soon, a ragtag bunch of ghetto-dwellers, Scroungers, raiders, rich bots, and even a couple of regular scrap collectors "happened to" make its way to various parts of the Underworks. Once they were out of sight, they took on the airs of very important people and efficiently made their way to the secret passages of the Headquarters building.

It was a highly secret fact that the DomIntel Headquarters building was actually part of a vast complex. Now, well-hidden doors were activated, and corridors thought to be there just for maintenance became secret entrances. Once the doors were closed, they once again looked like parts of the exterior corridor walls. The hidden corridors looked like normal ones on the inside, too - at least until going around some curves. Then, yet more hidden doors were activated. These, however, had lock levels almost unheard of in the outside world, and these locks had plenty of backup power systems. After they were activated by these people of apparently no consequence, the doors opened up to the basement of the Headquarters building.

Inside the building, all ruses were dropped, and it was clear that all of the bots were actually deep-cover agents who had been called in off of their current cases. They made their way to an extremely secure conference room, and the meeting began.

"We have lost all contact with High Command, and at the same time, Masher of the IOPC has finally gotten his Bravery Up on enough to make a move." The stark announcement came from the Scrounger-looking bot known as Metalripper. Like the others, his real name was unknown - he used a code name so that he could easily shift to a new deployment when the time came.

"It appears that Megatron and the High Generals have become stuck on the Hell Side of his portal." Another reported. "Agents in Paranormal are saying that the portal slammed shut suddenly. Though Masher had gone to it with the intention of sabotaging it, Paranormal believes that he actually had nothing to do with it."

The one who looked like a scrap collector spoke up. "Meanwhile, the Government District has turned to looting. Elite troops are easily holding the Vault Complex, but the Fountain of Supreme has been cleared out. Megatron's chief of the Household Guard has turned off the valve to preserve most of the stock. Also, underground, we have found a tap on the Private Reserve Pipeline going to Masher's manor."

They all stopped for a moment and chuckled. "So he managed to get it after all," one said. Metalripper soon brought them back to seriousness. "That means that our spy for that area is corrupt!" He said with a bit of an angry shout. "Our agent is supposed to routinely check that pipeline. For him not to report a tap means he's on the take. We will use him to feed Masher lies."

The group nodded. A corrupt agent on the IOPC's payroll would surely run to Masher with whatever misinformation he was told, assuming that whoever did the telling made it seem legit. This could be used to cause all sorts of grief to the would-be challenger.

"As for Masher's idea of invading, he'll get nowhere with that as long as we can keep the loyalty of the population. But we MUST not admit that the main Decepticon Government is incommunicado. Otherwise, we will face nearly-instant civil war." Metalripper continued. "Since Megatron is still presumed to be functional, my standing order is that in this situation, I am to activate Secret Decree A99F." He turned to one of the top spies at the table. "Parrot. You shall play the part."

Parrot - the code name of an agent who, until now, had been placed within the business district - sat up extremely tall and even started to snoot up his nose.

"Aren't you proud of yourself!" Another one jibed. "YOU get to have people try to blow your boards off, try to hack you, and try to connive you out of your last Cubelet until Megatron returns!"

"Jealous! You'd give your upper motion board for this chance," Parrot said down his nose as he stood up.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron's Most Secret Body Vault

Parrot and Metalripper marched down several hallways, making 100 miles worth of turns and switchbacks, until arriving at a door that was 10 feet thick. They entered their authorization codes, and the massive door slowly slid to the side. After entering, they went through one more similar door before arriving in the actual vault. Metalripper smacked the wall, and the lights came up.

Along the sides of the walls, copies of every current high general's body stood like eerie statues. Among them was a copy of Megatron's body. Other notables, such as Masher himself as well as the owner of the Decepticon Parts Company, were also duly replicated.

Parrot, barely hiding his eagerness, made his way to the copy of Megatron. Just over an hour ago, he had been busy spying on exactly who the Decepticon Parts Company dealt with and just what they bought. Now, he would be the Leader of the Decepticons - at least for the duration of this mission. His eyes glowed evenly as he opened the chest panel and attached his transfer cables. Inside, his mind raced with how he would be able to take over the entire planet with this ruse, and despite his most honorable intentions, he soon succumbed to the temptation. By the time he put through the actual transfer command, he had already decided not to relinquish control, but instead, use his new body to take full command of the Decepticons.

Within a few minutes, his mind was transferred into "Megatron's" body. Immediately, he let out a dismayed and pained screech! Right after, however, he seemed to return to normal.

"Sorry about that, Parrot," Metalripper said, patting him on his new shoulder. "All Command Bodies have 100% Loyalty viruses pre-installed for obvious reasons. They tend to cause some pain if they clash with the original intentions of the user of the body. But don't worry. The Code is set up to cause you as little distress as possible. For example, I'm sure that you are now very proud to hold Cybertron for Megatron, and aren't at all thinking of just keeping the job forever." The fact that Parrot had been planning a takeover didn't bother Metalripper. The spy agency's second-in-command would have considered him hopelessly obtuse if he didn't get such ideas from what seemed like an obvious opportunity.

"Keeping the job? I wouldn't dream of betraying our Divine Leader that way!" Parrot said, now being completely genuine - or more accurately, genuinely under the control of the 100% Loyalty Virus. The virus had totally wiped out his backstabbing train of thought, and he wouldn't be able to even consider making a takeover attempt until he returned to his old body and was cleaned of the virus by a top-secret DomIntel Debugger.

For now, Parrot's duty was simple enough. He just had to make sure that he was seen in the copy-body and acted like he was Megatron. That would prevent rumors of Megatron's disappearance from gaining any traction.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Heavenly Realms

When Leader Megatron detected that Decepticon souls were going to the Decepticon Realms instead of to the Main Save Vault, he knew that the calculus of the operation had changed drastically.

"It is in our best interests, due to Condition 10, to return to Cybertron now," he radioed the troops using the encrypted military frequency. He didn't know whether or not Yahweh could really break encryption as easily as the stories let on, but Megatron did know that he wasn't going to just let his words spill over the open air on some assumption that encryption would be useless. Assuming that an enemy had more capacity than he did was just as harmful as underestimation. The same went for assuming that proof of one sort of power indicated the presence of any other sort of it.

"It has also come to my attention that my portal has been interfered with," Megatron admitted, still using encryption. "However, that shouldn't be a problem. Just be ready to stop and hang around when I say to."

As a group, Megatron and the Decepticon Forces turned around and headed into the sky. They did not, however, go back to the Hell Lands. Megatron had remembered Carjack's comment about it always being easier to get into a bad place than to get out of one, and had an idea: He would stop near the good side of the chasm, where there had been total peace and only a few humans (who had been at peace for years) hanging around. This was, by a non-Decepticon's standards, a more-good place than Cybertron. That would make Cybertron the comparatively-bad place - and therefore, the place that would be easier to get to.

Megatron intended to pick up Carjack and his Battalion on the way through, but when he reached that area, he was amazed to see the huge pillar of fire that still raged. After a short conversation with the Genocider, he decided to go ahead and test this fire out. Megatron put a strong anti-heat force field around himself and approached the column. Once near it, he took a big canister out of his leg panel and hooked it up to a standard blaster barrel that he also had there.

With a loud spraying noise, Megatron released liquid nitrogen from the canister and aimed it at the base of the fire. To his shock, the super-cold fluid just hissed off in big white clouds.

"And you say this vaped my burner?" He asked, seeming fascinated by the idea.
"That's right," Carjack confirmed. "Total obliteration~!"
Megatron got a shysty look on his face that clearly showed that he was considering raiding the energy of the fire itself to charge up some Energon. He was just starting to reach for his leg panels to get out an all-fuels Energon charger when the pillar got much thinner and then went out.

"YOU SHALL NOT HAVE THE ENERGY OF THE ONE GOD!" A big voice boomed from the air.

Megatron, rather than being worried, was irked as hell. Instantly, he made a personal goal of raiding this One God guy. The voice came again. "THE CHANCE OF RAIDING THE ONE GOD IS LESS THAN THE CHANCE OF A NEWLY-BUILT ROBOT DRAINING THE MAIN REFINERY," it insisted. Of course, like any proper raider, Megatron was just more motivated by this claim.

For now, the Decepticon Leader made no further commentary so as not to give his own game away before he had the chance to show back up with high-powered, all-fuels raiding equipment. Megatron turned around and gave the command to continue on to the place near the chasm. Relieved that there would be no more fights initiated by the Decepticon Leader today, Carjack and his troops entered formation and went with him.

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

Near the Chasm

Megatron had everyone circle instead of landing, but he himself quickly came to the ground on his feet. There, he got out his field repair kit, but instead of performing repairs, he fashioned the device he had been working on with Replicator. This device hadn't been perfected enough to match the frequency of the main part of Heaven, but it was good enough to produce one better than the ambient energy on his side while tuning into Cybertron's energy for the destination aspect. Then, he opened his own lower abdominal panel and exposed his batteries. Next, he connected his quickly-made temporary device to them using surprisingly-standard jumper cables. He made sure to lean down as he did this so that the ambitious troops above wouldn't be able to spot the easy chance to shoot a blast in.

The Decepticon's engine revved mightily as it strained to provide enough power to its alternator both for Megatron's system and the new high-draining load that had been connected to his batteries. It took about two hours of constant power, but eventually, the device showed obvious effects. The beautiful metal of Cybertron - specifically, the area over the Main Military Base - came into view. "Go, go, go!!!" Megatron commanded, and in a giant swarm, the Decepticon Military began to arrive back home. Since Megatron was powering the portable portal generator with his own body, he would need to go through last.

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

Coltan

Masher hadn't been overly shocked when the fake Megatron appeared on the air, "candidly seen," he was sure, by a Propaganda reporter. He'd figured that Megatron would have someone loyal enough to send in to cover for him, though he did expect that the person would just end up trying to take over himself soon enough.

Before Megatron got back, he finally managed to break through Propaganda's blockage, and Advertising began to tell the Cybertronians how Masher would never cause such a thing as a flood to hit the Metal Planet. "Megatron's ego has finally grown so much that it is a liability rather than a driving force," the ads announced. "It's time to throw him out and replace him with a proper businessbot - a true expert in the financial side of the Decepticon Way! Stop relying on endless raiding to cover up economic incompetence!! Install Masher as Leader of the Decepticons today!"

On Cybertron, the Bureau of Propaganda was very pissed that its jamming had been overridden, and was ready to send out attack ads against Masher. Before they could, however, DomIntel intercepted them with another plan. They were to broadcast false reports to Coltan that said the people were up in arms against Megatron and had rejected the fake as just that - a fake. These reports would show riots in all of the important and believable places. Meanwhile, Cybertron would be shown ads of the planet's greatness, Megatron's wonderful leadership, and people acting like only a complete glitchwagon would even consider throwing out the current leader.

Soon, Propaganda was expertly doing what DomIntel had said, and Masher saw only reports of mass social breakdown on Cybertron. Clearly - or at least, it seemed clear to Masher - it was time to finally make his move.

Meanwhile, Red Diamond was feeling strange. He seemed sort of spaced out, yet his head seemed heaver than normal. Immediately going to Debugging when feeling mentally weird wasn't something that was drilled into Coltani culture yet, but he knew that Masher always made a big deal out of it. Yet, a big operation was about to go down! He tried to make up his mind, but his thoughts kept getting cut off by what seemed to be an outside force...yet was inside. "No, stay here," it said.

Red Diamond was completely unfamiliar with such things, but the concept of an internal "thought" that didn't track back to any known coding was also foreign - and therefore, stood out like a neon sign as an error state. He quickly went toward the Debugging Center as psychological resistance increased with each step. "Masher, Masher," he finally cried over his radio. "I think something is trying to recode me!"

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

The Quick Drink

"Oh, so yer thinkin' you can be our leader, huh?" Said one of the raiders when MasterBlaster came up to their table. "I know how it goes. You wannabes hang around listening for a discontented gang and then try to horn into the top spot. I'll have you know right now: It'll take more than getting rid of the old boss to convince us. We can take him out ourselves - there are four of us, and one of him. But what we need is a guy who knows how to plan a f'in raid! You heard how the old boss screwed up on the targeting part. Convince us you won't do that. Show us that you won't have us spend 10 Cubes each flying across space only to get to a 'refinery' that closed up years ago!"

The others nodded in agreement. The last thing they wanted was a 'new boss, same as the old boss' situation. MasterBlaster would have to lay out some kind of a raid plan that involved hitting a refinery that was known to be fully open, and that wasn't behind any highly-serious defenses.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Loyal Star had now provided Domintel with vital information that stopped Masher getting the advantage of surprise, and a way to spy on Coltan and other places without the need to bug places or send agents. This would, once the trouble was over, be reported up and find it's way to Megatron's ears. Whilst of course Loyal Star still needed to do his military stint like every other Decepticon, being so useful to Megatron and the Decepticon nation a second time so soon after the first time was most certainly helping when it came to being ordinated as a Priest of Megatron. He was quietly thinking how good it was to help Cybertron in his own small way.

*****
Normally, Decepticons did not generally yell out in pain, unless they were being melted down alive for treason with the pain switch soldered in the ON position, but there were exceptions, and the nasty shock Parrot got was one of the exceptions. Normally Megatron loathed loyalty viruses, preferring the occasional treasonous plot to leading a nation of enslaved drones. But this was an exception as otherwise there could easily be another civil war. At the time this room was made, Megatron was not yet a god. Not so long ago, Megatron bodies had been perfectly legal to possess by the general public, but this had changed after the Grand Theft Anything gang had tried to steal the reparations given by Vallermoore after it's secret service tried to kidnap and hack a Decepticon. Because it was a bit unfair to at once execute bots who had not at the time been breaking the law as it then stood, they had been given a week to melt down all said bodies that were in their possession.

*****
With the Portal now reopened, regiment after regiment of the Decepticon Military flew through one hundred abreast. Even at this capacity, it would take a long while to fit them through given the sheer numbers. Megatron would be the last to leave, both because he had to keep the portal working and because being the last to leave was a brave thing to do. In battle, he did not needlessly sacrifice his fellow bots. He would keep that portal open for as long as he needed to. Leaving bots behind in hostile territory and with no way back to Cybertron or the Main Save Vault was not his style and never had been. Every regiment flying back was making Cybertron that little bit harder to invade. Megatron had not given up the attempt to kill Yahweh just like he had slain the alicorns, but it was clear that the Christian God was much harder to deal with and logistics would come into it. Cargo bots with Energon stores would be needed when he made his second attempt.

*****
Coltan

Once more, a huge Coltani Raiding Horde was rapidly assembling, their green eyes gleaming with anticipation of taking the glorious gleaming Metal Planet for themselves. Officered by the IOPC, they were brave fighters and well armed and armoured, but apart from a single regiment, they had almost no discipline. They did have enough discipline not to turn on each other in the middle of a battle but not much more. When they came up against the Decepticon Military backed up by the rest of the Decepticon Nation, they would be taught a very important and very painful lesson in why it was stupid to attack a force bigger and better then theirs.
*****
Realizing he might soon be possessed or worse, Red Diamond took off his blasters and threw them to the ground as Masher came to his aid, ready to try and capture whatever it was. Red Diamond was rolling on the ground, squealing as he fought for control of his body, unable to mind transfer. Masher remembered how Red Diamond had not only saved his life, but saved him from a Hell designed just for him filled with honest bots who could not be connived, and with no way to raid either. He was determined to return the favour for one of his only true friends.

******
The Quick Drink

MasterBlaster thought quickly. "I know of a pony planet five light years away from here that has nothing heavier guarding it's refineries then technicals with machine guns mounted on them. No SAMs to worry about, and millions of Energon Cubes waiting to falling into our hands, if you will just give me a chance to bring you there." He hoped the refineries had not upgraded their security since the fall of Equestria to the Decepticons not that long ago.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Coltan

At first, Masher figured that the best bet would be to shut Red Diamond down to prevent further spread of what was likely a virus, but when he got closer, he detected the same evil energy as he'd seen near the portal. Immediately, his eyes glowed bright red with a connive - but pulling it off would mean putting Red Diamond in danger. To him, the potential negative was just another fact of life as a syndicate boss. He hoped everything would go well, but didn't let the possibility of a bad outcome deter his plan.

He realized that the evil entity's ability to move - and possess anyone - was highly tied to his incorporeal nature. If the being successfully took over Red Diamond, however, he would become incarnate - and instantly subject to the full range of the known laws of physics. If Masher shut Red Diamond down THEN, he could take the infested boards out and stuff 'em somewhere, and the entity would be trapped until the end of time, or at least until the boards were destroyed. Unlike humans, who eventually died completely and released their souls along with the souls of any interlopers, a set of stored boards was neither dead nor alive - and more importantly, retained their coding in a dormant state rather than releasing it.

Using his eye panels, Masher signaled to Red Diamond to transfer his own mind to his hidden onboard personality chip. Red didn't know what was up, and by now could barely think, but managed to get the command through. In an instant, only his most essential coding was transferred, with the evil entity attempting to follow right along but ending up just a shade slower. That's when Masher used his powers to burn the connecting wire to dust, creating a physical barrier between the personality chip and the rest of Red Diamond's data.

The evil one was angry for a moment, but then noticed that there was now no sapient resistance to the takeover of the body at all! He quickly overwrote Red Diamond's data with his own, and for the first time in...perhaps ever...was 100% incarnate with zero opposition! Even when he'd possessed humans, there had been some shred of personality left trying to get free. Now, there was nothing.

Red's green eyes darkened maliciously and his engine dropped to a low growl. Yet, the entity tried to pretend everything was normal and started to insist that he was fine! His next step, he figured, would be to convince this Masher that he was just testing him to see if he would help - and that there was really nothing wrong at all. Then, he would use his position to convince Masher to spread bottomless evil to Coltan, and then if there was enough of it left to do anything of note at all, spread evil to other planets. At least, that's what the Devil was thinking he'd do.

Masher laughed in the entity's face when the baloney started up. He deftly torched Red's panels open and exposed his motherboards. Then, as he held Red's struggling and now-cursing and blaspheming body down with his knees, he began to pull those boards out as fast as he could, starting with the mind boards. To a practiced Decepticon like him, the simple mechanical operation took less than 10 seconds. It only required the opening of some clips and the basic yanking-out of the boards. "You came to da wrong place, losa!" Masher mocked without slowing down.

Soon, Red Diamond's possessed boards were in a helpless, harmless stack on the ground. Inside, the Devil initiated his exit routine, but the boards instantly depowered since they were no longer connected to a serious battery. Masher quickly took the tiny backup battery - which wasn't strong enough to power the calculations needed to return to a noncorporeal state - and disconnected it, too. Now, whatever programming was in the boards was stuck there, inoperative and unconscious. Meanwhile, all of the data in the RAM was dumped, leaving only the installed programming, rather than on-board memories, intact at all.

"Sucka." Masher stated, looking at the boards with a curled lip. Once he was satisfied that the enemy was neutralized, he started carefully slicing the body apart. Finally, after several minutes, he located Red Diamond's hidden personality chip down in one of the feet and took it out. Next, he took the deactivated board set and carefully placed it into his most secure private safe, within a hidden panel. He did not want those boards destroyed, for destroying them would likely release the captive within. Reactivation of the boards would be just as bad, so he hid them as well as he possibly could. Now, even if the safe was broken into, it would still look like this board set wasn't even in it.

~~~~~~~~~

Soon after, Masher arrived at Coltan's best Debugging Center with Red Diamond's personality chip and his most recent save disk. "Data merge dese," he said, "but first take a look at da Code in dat chip. It might've been corrupted. Strange stuff happened, so make dat a real good look."

It didn't take long to look at personality code. Most of a robot's code was derived from it rather than being a direct part of the personality. Soon, the Debuggers were amazed to note that a few nasty changes had indeed been made. The designation of loyalty as a "good" or "desirable" trait had been switched so that it would now be considered bad. This made it so that, if run, it would practically compel Red Diamond to betray anyone he could. His most hated enemy was switched from someone he personally knew before Masher's arrival to "good people" in general. Finally, his main life's goal had been set to "undermine Yahweh" instead of "support Coltan."

Fortunately for Red Diamond, the Debuggers were able to fix all of this within minutes by replacing it with known-good personality data from his Save Disk. Then, they transferred all of the data from the old personality chip to a new one just in case something about the hardware itself had been altered. Finally, they merged all of the known-good data, restoring Red Diamond's mind, and activated him in a new body.

"Dat idiot was Satan," Masher explained after telling Red what had gone on since his last Save was made. "He's known fer bein' evil just fer evil's sake, or more accurately, cuz Yahweh likes good and Satan always wants ta do da opposite of whateva' Yahweh wants. Just cuz Yahweh wants it."

"He sounds like he's coded outta glitches!" Red said once he got his bearings and had finished cussing out the hacker.

"Weird t'ing is, from all I know, he recoded himself outta glitches as some kinda bizarre middle finga ta his real Coder, who surely woulda Coded him propa'ly to begin wit'. But nuts as dat is, him bein' made outta glitches made it easy ta beat him. He let 'imself get fully tangible by takin' ova yer body, and den it was a simple matta to capture him. Now he gets ta rot in my special area foreva'." Masher didn't even tell Red Diamond where that special area was. If no one but Masher ever knew, then the only way to find out would be to hack it out of Masher himself - and since nobody but Red Diamond even knew that there was data to be had, it was unlikely that anyone would try.

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

Soon after Red Diamond was restored, Masher was back to checking the holovision stations. Now, they showed the Megatron Mansion being stormed, and riots getting perilously close to the Main Refinery. He would have to make his move soon, or else the Energon would be raided dry and it'd be very hard to restore enough order to set up a new regime!

Quickly, Masher gave the order: "Now's da time!" His voice went over Coltan's military frequencies. "Now we take da Metal Planet and make it our paradise and our base!"

Immediately, the Coltani Military took flight toward Cybertron, whooping and cheering.

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

Cybertron

Whoops and cheers went up here as well, but in this case, the celebration was deep in the bowels of the Bureau of Propaganda. Masher had fallen for it! He was sending his ill-prepared, small military to Cybertron at this very moment! The view was on a special closed-circuit holovision set up by DomIntel, which was also in the room. It was showing a feed from some of Cybertron's space perimeter camera-telescopes. Through it, they could see about 10 million bots coming, most of whom appeared to be raiders rather than soldiers.

"That guy usually makes sure a raid will be profitable," one of the DomIntel agents noted as he picked up his communicator. "He's rich, but it's clear that a different kind of greed finally got the better of him: The greed for power." With that, he radioed the Main Military Base and let them know that an invasionary force was incoming.

Immediately, the many, many troops who had not gone with Megatron were given the order to get ready, while the incoming ones were given flight path orders that would keep them and the outgoing ones from getting in each other's way. Not long after, an initial defense force equal in numbers to Coltan's began to take flight and set themselves up just outside of Cybertron's gravitational range. Behind them, 100,000,000 more eagerly awaited the takeoff order.

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

The Edge of Paradise

Megatron's portal was doing well, though the Leader wished he had a better way to power it. He'd definitely need a big drink of engine oil when he got home, after all of that revving and the thermal breakdown it was causing.

Off in the distance, Abraham and some other humans watched the scene. They looked like they didn't know what to think of these metal men who turned into flying things. Megatron himself, standing there with his abdomen open yet not showing any signs of distress from that, was another mystery. It made these humans, here since ancient times, wish that they'd stayed more caught up on what had been going on in the physical realm. They had just enjoyed having endless tasty food and great weather, and chatting with each other about philosophy and other high-minded diversions. Yet it was obvious that outside, much had changed.

If they knew that one of the things that had changed was that Earth had been invaded and now there were only a handful of "wild" humans on it who even knew who they were or what Earth's religions used to be, they surely would have had stronger thoughts about the giant beings they now saw swarming through the portal.

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

Quick Drink, Cybertron

The disgruntled gang members weren't yet impressed.
"Okay, so you think you know of a spot. Our current leader thought he knew of a spot, too. Tell you what. You prove to us that this refinery is open and active, and that it isn't surrounded by a bunch of serious defenses. THEN we'll come with you."

MasterBlaster would find it easy to confirm that it was still there and existing if he was able to call it somehow. Proving that it wasn't now surrounded by upgraded defenses would be harder since most locations didn't want to talk about their defense abilities - and because even asking about them would be a tipoff that something was about to happen.

~~~~~~~~~

Heaven

The most shocking thing being discussed in the inner sanctum wasn't the exit of the Decepticon Forces, nor was it the fact that thousands of post-life humans had just been reassigned elsewhere. Instead, several angels were noting that Satan - the adversary of millennia - seemed to have suddenly dropped completely off the radar.

"He is on Coltan," Yahweh informed them with a wry smile. "He thought he could easily take over the Coltanis, likely because they have mistakenly put their faith in a pretender who is actually no kind of god at all and therefore could offer no supernatural help. But like is common with him, he was WAY too cocky and made a silly mistake. This mistake allowed him to be subject to physical action, just as if he was a normal part of the mundus. And Masher, the false god, took immediate advantage of that."

"I will it that Satan be trapped there for 1,000 years. The board set that he so eagerly took over shall be his prison, the Void mentioned by my prophets." While not being the kind of void normally thought of, it served the same purpose. There was no sapience in the boardset at all other than Satan's, and he was indeed stuck fast. However, the lack of energization meant that Satan couldn't even perceive this. He was offline, and would remain so until the One True God willed otherwise.

Using a level of stealth that would make Foreign Intelligence seem obvious in comparison, Yahweh blessed Masher's safe with ultimate camouflage as well as protection from any kind of disaster, natural or not. Now, no thief would be able to find and disturb Red Diamond's old boards, and they wouldn't be destroyed, either. The use of stealth ensured that any psychics in the area wouldn't detect Yahweh's unmistakable energy and get motivated to try to find out what he'd been transmitting at.

[Vallermoore]

Coltan

Coltanis, for the same reason as Decepticons, never hugged, but when he was restored Red Diamond freely gave Masher a very deep bow of gratitude, the robot equivalent of a big hug. "Thank you so much; you saved my life there. Damm that accursed hacker! Now that you have those boards, he will never be free again to work his mischief unless the boards are melted down by mistake. And such a being never should be free again, he is a threat to us all. Too bad you didn't catch him whilst you and Megatron were still friendly; the reward you would have got for catching Satan would most likely have been huge."

Soon enough Masher gave the order and all but a few hundred bots who were left to guard the planet took off in a huge horde, eager to get their hands on all the loot on Cybertron and occupy the fine metal houses. A planet of metal where it never rained or snowed was a heaven to them. When they had Cybertron, they would be invincible. They would have been much less battle ready if they had known that they were about to run slap-bang into the Decepticon Military. Masher had never set up an afterlife, nor had he made a Main Save Vault yet, so for those bots with no spare, they were potentially flying to their deaths.

Cybertronian Space/Cybertron

Commanded by their base generals, the first line of Decepticon defence waited in plane mode for the Coltani Horde and as soon as it came out of FTL, they opened fire, blasting up the front line of Coltanis before it could properly react and blast back. The Coltanis opened fire and tried to fly below or above or to encircle the Decepticon lines. Now it was the turn of the Decepticons to start taking losses but as they were all serving soldiers , and noone on either side could run a jammer without endangering their own side, their losses went back to the Main Save Vault. The rich Coltanis who died went back to their spares on Coltan, but any bot without a spare who died dissipated helplessly into the ether. About a third of the Coltani raiders did get through, only to then meet another 100,000,000 Decepticon soldiers. Even then, a few hundred Coltani bots, because the battle was being fought in 3D and it was very hard to catch them, made it to Cybertron to raid.

They discovered that the Decepticon People were almost as hard to defeat as their Military. Their glowing green eyes marked them out as foreign raiders, so as soon as they kicked off, everybody whaled on them.

One small band tried to raid SolarTempest's mansion, only to find it was where SolarTempest and his huge gang were planning their next raid.

Two of them tried to raid Vintage's shop.

Five landed in the street where MasterBlaster was, and MasterBlaster and the gang he was with decided that they might as well unite to take on the Coltanis. After all, they might not be friends, but nobody who was not a Decepticon raided
the Metal Planet and got away with it. Within seconds MasterBlaster had lowered his pain levels and raised his Bravery Up, revving angrily at the green eyed raider he was taking on. "How dare you invade the Metal Planet, you hunk of foreign junk!" In this body, the fight did not last long. With only a few light wounds that were absorbed by the thick armour, MasterBlaster's impressive blasters quickly reduced his Coltani foe, one of the poorer Coltanis, to scrap. Around him, the gang took on and defeated the rest, and then each including MasterBlaster took a body and headed off to the nearest foundry. "Just because we fought together against those idiots, does not make you one of us," warned one of the gang. "If you can't give us the evidence we need and quickly, go away. We are a lot tougher then those Coltani walking junkheaps, and if you mess us about, we will blast you, even if you are in a very strong body."

MasterBlaster phoned the place, talking in his old Auric Haroldsonn voice and in Vallermoorian, and was soon put through to the sapient pony head of the plant, whilst broadcasting the call to the gang. "Auric Haroldsonn here. I am thinking of investing a large amount of money in your plant, but I need to know about the level of security first. I would not want to lose a lot of Chingchings because the place had no proper protection." If it worked, he would have the info he needed. Of course, if it were inaccurate and one or more of the gang lost a body on the raid, MasterBlaster would have some very angry new enemies on Cybertron.

*****

Meanwhile, the last few would be raiders tried to leave only to be caught and blasted to scrap, just as the real Megatron showed up. No prisoners had been taken apart from a single IOPC bot who was caught trying to raid a Temple of Megatron. As a Decepticon leading foreign bots, that made him a traitor; and since he was caught at the head of a group of Coltanis , this would provide the evidence needed to ban the whole of the IOPC from Cybertron and confiscate all their seizeable assets. The raiding in itself, even though it was against a temple, was not illegal, but doing it with non-Decepticons most certainly was. The IOPC bot was hauled up before the real Megatron, and what had happened; including the small but very helpful part that Loyal Star and his scrying device had played in stopping the raid by the two million Coltanis being a total surprise-was soon made clear to Megatron by Metalripper.

Megatron glared at the unfortunate IOPC bot with dark eyes and delivered his judgement there and then, not just on the luckless bot, but on the IOPC itself as an organisation and on Masher. Masher himself was not there, he and Red Diamond were fleeing back to Coltan.

*****
As the last raiders who had not got through to Cybertron fled for their lives, the Decepticon Military were hot on their heels, hoping to be able to raid Coltan to the bare sand for this outrage. Of all the things that angered Decepticons, messing with the Metal Planet came near the top of the list. Equestria had found that out the hard way.

*****

Elsewhere

On one of the planets ruled by Ponies, the Archbishop Holy One was explaining what had happened on Vallermoore. "If our religion is not to be lowered everywhere to cult status at best, we need a new alicorn. One or more of us must undergo the top secret rites of accession."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

The forces returning from the Heavenly Realms were surprised to find themselves flying into chaos! This chaos, however, was of a very familiar sort: Standard warfare. Megatron quickly radioed the go-ahead to join right in, and using a pre-learned military maneuver, those without damage seamlessly merged with the already-engaged soldiers while the ones who needed repairs stuck to the other pattern meant to get them out of the way.

It didn't take long before many of the Coltanis were either floating in space in pieces, crashed to the ground in pieces, or busy routing as fast as they could. Masher and Red Diamond were both seen using their higher-spec capabilities to bolt back to Coltan. Before that, the power - and limitations - of Masher's counterfeit Quantum Processor had been demonstrated. He'd been able to use its energy to destroy about 10,000 Decepticon troops and block most of the blasts aimed at him, which was very impressive, but he was eventually overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.

~~~~~~~~

Soon, Megatron arrived through the portal, which closed behind him as he shut it down. The human spirits in the other realm got a quick, but detailed glimpse of a metal world completely embroiled in war.

"Surely it is a new Hell!" some of them marveled. "A land with only metal life and constant fighting."

"It doesn't seem that the situation there is normal even for it," Abraham noted, as Moses came up alongside him and agreed. "There are many well-built structures, and it doesn't seem poverty-ridden. If it was always at war, it would be made of shacks and the people would be in bad shape."

"The war is likely the work of a betrayer," Moses said. "Someone who knew that the leader and his forces were here. Speaking of that leader, I wonder what that guy attacked here for? His side doesn't appear to be doing badly. What could they have against God?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Back on Cybertron, Parrot was relieved of his mission, and the loyalty virus, down in DomIntel's secret room. Though Parrot had agreed upon sign-on to accept whatever was necessary to make an assigned DomIntel mission work - including being subject to conditions that would be illegal if he wasn't an agent, such as being hacked - he was very glad to be back to himself. He was also glad when he was told that it was considered normal to want to capitalize on a mission involving the impersonation of Megatron and that he needn't fear any treason charges. As for the use of the imitation Megatron body, that too was allowed under the Secret Decree. As with many secret police forces, the laws were a bit different for it, especially when it came to an operation - though this fact was, itself, kept under wraps as much as possible.

Megatron was quickly brought up to speed, and was, as expected, thoroughly pissed to find out that his mansion had been re-flooded by Masher. However, he wasn't too surprised at that attack since he'd flooded IOPC Headquarters. Payback was a Decepticon standard. What really infuriated him was the outright invasion attempt. THAT was true treason. While he had expected Masher to do it someday, he was still furious and he still felt extremely betrayed. If it wasn't for the Decepticons and the Decepticon Way, Masher would have been a two-bit criminal doomed to rot in some foreign jail cell! It was Megatron, and his steadfast refusal to extradite, that let Masher and the IOPC become what it was! It was Megatron's Minimum Design Specifications for the Decepticon Body that let Masher avoid simply getting blown away by foreign militaries when he first started raiding! And now, it had all gone to Masher's head, and the day had come. Very secretly, Megatron was also disappointed. He'd hoped and expected that Masher would be a bigger challenge when he finally made his move, and that he'd show Megatron how well he'd learned the Decepticon Way. Instead, he'd fallen for mere media reports without sending spies to confirm. Apparently, Replicator's Quantum Processor wasn't as close of a replication as previously thought. It seemed that Masher's common sense code wasn't operating properly, or perhaps, wasn't running at all.

Before Megatron could formulate much of a response, a treasonous IOPC bot was brought before him. Rather than immediately put on his jammer and blast him with his fusion cannon, he ordered him stripped of his Decepticon citizenship. This made hacking him fair game. Then, Megatron used his divine power to do exactly that, right there on the spot, and learned that Coltanis had been being stirred up to take over Cybertron almost since the moment Masher arrived. This he knew, but the IOPC bot's data showed that it was likely that Coltanis would have been more peaceful - or at least, less likely to target Cybertron - without Masher goading them through propaganda exhorting the raiding lifestyle and tales of Cybertron's riches. Megatron made sure to get all of the other information he could, too, such as all of the planets the traitor knew of where IOPC operatives had business operations.

Once the traitor was thoroughly mined for data, Megatron looked around to make sure that media was present. After seeing that it was, he raised his fusion cannon and executed the traitor himself, using a small jamming field to prevent mind-transfer without interfering with the broadcast. He then ordered the media bots to return in one hour for his official statement. The Decepticon people wouldn't be able to pay proper attention while there was still chaos going on.

Coltan

Though many Decepticons chased the Coltanis back home, they didn't have Megatron's divine power with them. Because of this, Coltan's defensive force field held, though barely, as the Coltanis flew on through and the Decepticons were blocked. The Decepticons immediately started to whale on the shield, but thanks to Masher quickly attaching its generators to one of the planet's biggest power plants, it withstood the onslaught - for now.

~~~~~~~~~~

Vintage's Shop and Other Places on Cybertron

It didn't take long for Vintage to dispatch the two raiders who tried to hit his store. They were wowed at what seemed, to them, to be a grand display of opulence as they saw everything from full bodies to rare bolts on display. While they were busy looking around trying to get their bearings, Vintage got busy with his current blaster - a fusion cannon he'd picked up for cheap about a month prior. Soon, the chop shop master had two more bodies on display, each of them deactivated in a way that preserved the most possible parts for resale. The mind-boards of the intruders, now slashed across their traces and crucial circuits so they'd never run again, were tacked onto the wall like decorations along with a few boards of clear Decepticon design that had been similarly treated.

At SolarTempest's mansion, the scene was brutal and ended quickly. Coltani raiders clanged down in the yard, thinking there was no security, only to hear metal blast blinds drop over the windows. In each blind, there was a narrow gap. Soon, a blaster barrel protruded from each gap, and the defending gang began to fire away. The attackers found that the tiny openings were hard targets to hit, and soon, they were too damaged to worry about it anymore. Then, SolarTempest and his gang swarmed out and finished the job. When they saw that the attackers were foreigners, they put on their jammers. No foreign trash would be allowed to try to raid a Decepticon house and live to tell about it!

MasterBlaster and the gang he was with soon sold their enemies' bodies and were now walking along with carts loaded with 2,500 Cubes each. The lighter Coltani bodies weren't worth the usual 3,000-Cube scrap value.

In response to "Auric's" query, the refinery person on the other planet grew momentarily silent. "I have no evidence that you are the real investor." He then said coldly. "Suffice to say that only pre-authorized vehicles are allowed on the campus."

Though the installation had refused to say much, what they did say was a good sign. Security was apparently focused on vehicles rather than air strikes, and the very fact that they answered the phone meant that they were still in business. However, a well-proxied internet search, made to look as if the server hit didn't originate from Cybertron, could also be a good idea. If the refinery's planet had a good search engine, it would be possible to pull up recent pictures of the place and perhaps even a satellite view.

~~~~~~~~~

Later, when things had calmed down a bit, Megatron summoned the media back and made his official speech and gave his decrees.

"It is with a slow-running engine that I make this announcement," Megatron said, using a term somewhat akin to a human mentioning a 'heavy heart.' "But as we have all seen, the one who was once our biggest businessbot has turned traitor against us, and led an attack on this planet only one hour ago. Not only that, rather than acting alone, he was aided by several high-ranking members of his corporation. Therefore, there can be no equivocation. As of now, Masher of the Interplanetary Oil Procurement Corporation is stripped of his Decepticon citizenship and declared to be a foreign enemy. If he is seen in or near any Decepticon territory, he is to be deactivated on sight. The bounty for this deactivation shall be 10 million Cubes of Standard, payable upon confirmation of his identity by forensic code examination undertaken by Domestic Intelligence."

"The Interplanetary Oil Procurement Corporation itself is hereby declared an Enemy of the State. Its assets are to be seized, beginning right now, by Domestic Intelligence, the Decepticon Military, and good citizens of all sorts." This command, which was expected by both organizations, sent several hundred DomIntel agents and troops out immediately. They marched on the most well-defended IOPC assets, such as weapons and body depots, to seize them. Millions of normal Decepticons, many of whom had always wanted what was in the IOPC stores but couldn't afford the best stuff, also immediately descended on the stores in giant swarms. IOPC clerks, who were strong but not strong enough to fight off entire mobs of raiders, had no choice but to bail or die. Masher's own mansion was instantly attacked by his own neighbors, who were quickly joined by those from outside of the immediate area.

"Not all members or adjuncts of the Interplanetary Oil Procurement Corporation were part of the attack," Megatron went on. "Therefore, there shall not be a blanket punishment for prior association. However, those who fit this description will have to answer to this ultimatum. Either you will renounce your membership AND submit to code-read at your nearest Domestic Intelligence Office to prove your loyalty to me and the Decepticon Nation, or you shall be declared enemies of the State and face summary execution. You have one hour to report to your local DomIntel office. If you are detected attempting to leave Cybertron instead, you shall be considered to be a foreign enemy and shot down."

"Finally, the attack came from the planet Coltan. Coltan is currently behind an anti-media jam. Excuse me for a few moments while I take care of that."

Megatron stood silently for a moment. He appeared to be concentrating.

Over on Coltan, Masher was in his workshop fixing his many blast wounds when a functionary rushed in. "Megatron has completely vanquished our anti-media jam!" He reported. "The incoming signal is at such high power that the blocking system is totally overwhelmed!" Masher's engine whined at the news, but all he could do was turn on his holovision and see what would come over it.

Soon, Megatron resumed speaking. "Coltanis, you have just suffered a massive defeat thanks to the incompetence and foolishness of the one you've been calling your leader. He fell for one of the oldest tricks in the international political book, which is the broadcasting of false news. Because of that, you saw for yourself the might of the Decepticon Military. You also saw for yourselves that my government is completely stable, and that my planet is in good social order. Finally, you saw that Masher's claim to godhood is entirely false."

"Because of your leader's foolhardy assault, your planet is now subject to punitive seizure by the Decepticon Military. We will be coming in our hordes and will take it by the end of today. I tell you this because I know that most of you were misled by the incompetent ruler currently sitting in the Palace there, and if it were not for his egging you on, you likely would not have attacked us. While he did do better for you than the former king, you now know that if he remains in charge, it will all be for naught."

"I am offering you a choice: When we come, if you surrender to us immediately, we will leave you un-enslaved and still functional, though you will be made second-class subjects of the Decepticon Empire. If a large number of you fight us, however, we will consider you an Enemy Population. When we defeat an Enemy Population, there are only two outcomes for the people: Death. Or a lifetime of enslavement."

"Finally, there is another choice. You can overthrow Masher yourself, present to me his boards and his Saves, and declare your loyalty to me. Then there will be a chance that someday, you will be a proper part of the Decepticon Empire. This choice is yours. It is my hope that you will choose life."

With that, Megatron ended his broadcast, conveniently not mentioning the frustration he had just had in the Heavenly Realms. The troops that were with him were just as eager to maintain this convenience, not wanting to admit that they couldn't just barge right into Heaven with their sheer brute force.

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

Coltan

Masher decided to ditch his repair project and quickly switched to a new body entirely. He then ordered Red Diamond to do the same.

"I hopes ya can forgive me," he said to Red Diamond. "But we just saw dat dere's no way ta beat dat. I was able ta take out 10,000 a' dem troops a' deirs t'anks ta my Quantum Processa, but it was like whittlin' a block 'a steel wit' a pocket knife. Fer 500 years, I ain't made a mistake on what ta' raid or how ta' do it. But I got so powerful wit' my Quantum Processor dat I t'ought I was invincible. And now I see dat I ain't, but it's too late." He bowed his head in anguish. "I gotta get outta here. I know 'a places dat even DomIntel don't have a clue about. If ya come wit' me, you'll be safe enough. An we can rebuild from dere. But...but you can stay here if ya want, if ya wanna go down wit' da ship or...or..." He couldn't bring himself to say or go to Megatron, not after so many years of wanting to be the leader of Cybertron himself.

Meanwhile, outside the palace, many IOPC members who were on Coltan were assembling. They fully expected that the command would be to evacuate. None of them were of a mind to make a futile last stand, and they knew that their boss wasn't into futility either - at least, not when he knew for sure it would be futility!

A bit later, Masher got on the holovision and addressed the Coltanis. He apologized for his overreach, and for the trouble it was about to bring. While he didn't show much emotion - he'd never do that in public - he did wish Coltan the best. Finally, to the shock of ForIntel and Megatron, he actually suggested that the people submit to the Decepticons. "I neva t'ought I'd say dis," he began, "but yous have all been swell ta me. Yous have helped me achieve what had been a dream fer centuries. So's I'm tellin' ya. Da Decepticons, dey ain't kiddin' when dey say dey'll kill all resisters an' stick da rest in da mines. Dat battalion, da Genocide Battalion, dey've killed billions. An' dey LIKE killin' billions. An' da rest of 'em, dey've always wished dey could fill dey're mines wit' robot slaves."

"We know now dat dey really are da Strong. If ya fight da whole horde, yous gonna get even more unfortunate results den we had before. Leada Megatron, he'll do some t'ings ya won't like. Dere won't be any more cops. Immediately. An' yous'll hafta be on yer toes fer fraud all da time. An' Decepticons, dey take bribes, sos if you ain't rich ya might get a sludgy deal in terms a' bizness. But dere's one t'ing about him: He won't kill a loyalist. Or t'row one in da mines. An' ya won't hafta worry about anyone else invadin' ya..."

With that, the holovision went blank.

~~~~~~~~~

Several minutes later, the Decepticon Military was once again in flight. Three-quarters of the fully-intact force flew behind Leader Megatron, with the now-repaired General Carjack and the still-battle-ready members of the Genocide Battalion directly behind. Behind them, the generals of other platoons flew grimly, having already seen two big wars and handling the third one out of duty and revenge rather than fresh eagerness.

This formation was purposefully chosen. By putting the Genociders right up front, it sent the unmistakable message that the Decepticons were willing to wipe every living soul off the face of Coltan if the planet didn't surrender immediately.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

The gang were...mildly...more friendly towards MasterBlaster, but it would take a while before they would trust him enough to join them. And if he did get to join them, if he wanted to be their gang leader then he would have to take on individually each bot in single, non-fatal combat and beat him to prove himself worth his Metal and fit to lead them. Such were the traditions of the Decepticon Way. For now, he was still an outsider and more checking of the target would be needed before a raid. Soon enough this was done with a non-Sapient computer of MasterBlaster's.

When he next visited Vintage, he would be able to hear his war stories and see the mind boards displayed as warnings to any bot that thought of trying something bad in Vintage's shop. His offspring and his gang had made some Cubes from the short lived invasion.

*****
For the IOPC, the invasion was a total and utter disaster. Everyone from uniformed and undercover Domintel agents to members of the Military to ordinary Decepticons swarmed their shops and vaults and even their secret places, and they were so outnumbered that there was nothing they could do. Their aura of fear was gone, and their surviving enemies took full advantage of this. Almost as bad as being raided was that their organisation was declared illegal, a real humiliation for them. Those who survived would have to remove their IOPC decals that they were so proud of wearing. A handful tried to leave Cybertron in their currant bodies and paid for it with their lives. A few others changed to plain bodies with no IOPC marks on them and tried to leave Cybertron in disguise, some doing so successfully and flying to Masher on Coltan. Most formed long unhappy lines outside Domintel offices having burned off their decals. Masher's mansion was raided by all the nearby wealthy bots who took all Masher's possessions-games, blasters, spare bodies, parts for never-built offspring-the lot. The ex-IOPC bots openly cursed his name.
*****

Megatron was clever in leaving the Coltanis a way out. If he had announced that he and the Decepticon Military were coming to exterminate or enslave every last Coltani bot, they would have no choice but to fight to the end. As he had offered them decent surrender terms and a way out, only the most stupid would try to fight him.

Coltan

Out of the millions of Coltanis that had gone forward so eagerly, less then a hundred thousand would make it back to Coltan alive, many of them badly wounded with missing limbs and damaged boards. Apart from their officers of the IOPC, few had much of a liking for Masher now. He was not yet as hated as King Coal had been, and they remembered the good things he had done for them, but his rule was now decidingly shaky. The force field held up...for now, despite the blasting it was taking, but it was only a matter of time until Megatron himself got involved.

Having himself quite recently helped to destroy the once prosperous pony nation of Equestria and kill it's leaders, after Luna sent a black hole at Cybertron, Masher knew well what happened to any nation, robot or not, who threatened the Metal Planet, let alone actually raided it. If he carried on fighting, all the Coltanis who had served him so well would be killed in battle or forcibly hacked and enslaved. With the exceptions of those who had fought for King Coal and a few traitors, they had been loyal to him and very pleased that he had helped them to topple their unwanted monarch. They did not deserve death or everlasting slavery. He hated to do so, but he decided that he would have to resign as the Leader of Coltan.

He gave his last orders as the Leader, to turn off the force-field, and then made a resignation speech. First he apologised to Red Diamond. Then he bowed his head in anguish. "I gotta get outta here. I know 'a places dat even DomIntel don't have a clue about. If ya come wit' me, you'll be safe enough. An we can rebuild from dere. But...but you can stay here if ya want, if ya wanna go down wit' da ship or...or..."

"You overthrew the hated King Crap, made this planet a success, and saved me from being possessed by the supreme hacker Satan. I cannot desert you now. If you were totally alone and abandoned by all, I would still stand by your side. We can hide for a century or two until Megatron loses interest in us, and then get a factory and the needed parts and found a new race with the best qualities of Coltanis and Decepticons, and one day we will have an empire far enough away to avoid contact with Megatron's forces until we have the numbers to win and take the Metal Planet, no matter how long it takes. For now we have to lose ourselves in the vastness of the universe," Red Diamond said, and he meant it. "Here are some green Coltani eye shades in case you need a disguise." He passed them to Masher.

After Masher's speech, Red Diamond went on the holovision, his eyes a deep sad sea-green. "As Prime Minister of Coltan and for now, it's leader, I order what remains of the Coltani Military to disband and not fight when Megatron shows up, unless he attacks on sight and you have no option but to fight or die. Those few who support Masher as much as I do can leave with him-those who hate both Masher and Megatron can take your chances elsewhere as raiders or mercenaries or even workers if you want to. The rest of you, surrender. It is my first and last order as your leader. Obey it. I am resigning as your Prime Minster. Farewell, Coltanis." Once more the holovision went blank. Those Coltani bots who were still willing to fight now meekly deactivated the force shield and waited for the Decepticon Military to show up and annex their planet. Less then six hundred, either die-hard Masher loyalists or those who thought he was their only shield against Megatron, joined him and left with him, Red Diamond's Coder amongst them. A few thousand left, heading for random planets and various fates rather then come under Megatron's rule. The rest waited meekly for the takeover.
*****
When the Decepticon Military set off this time, Leader Megatron in front, the Genocide Battalion was unusually set in the front rank, a sign that any resistance at all would be punished with extermination. Quite a long way below General Carjack, low enough not to hotdog or get in any bot's way, flew Loyal Star. Technically he was not really supposed to be there in that position, but given that his scrying device had prevented a surprise attack which would have meant a lot more Coltanis reaching the Metal Planet, Carjack and his Battalion tolerated him. The other regiments followed, their generals at their head. When they got to Coltan, they found a large number of Coltanis waiting peacefully for them, and a bot who had once served in King Coal's administration flew up and bowed. "I am Stout Pump, a former minister under King Coal and then under Masher, and I am here to surrender our planet to your rule. We are all deeply sorry for what we did. Raiding Cybertron was a really stupid thing to do. Masher and Red Diamond and the IOPC are gone now."

Megatron was about to speak when he noticed Loyal Star, who was just quietly keeping out of the way and observing the short surrender ceremony. "You down there, Loyal Star...fly up here and wait over there by General Carjack, and when I have got this out of the way, I'll come and talk with you." Loyal Star did as he was told. Media bots from Coltan flew up to broadcast what Megatron would say to the survivors of the now humbled and conquered Coltani people. Whilst their surrender had prevented their utter extermination or enslavement, it was clear that a heavy punishment was about to be handed down. The sacred Metal Planet had been violated by a few of their raiders getting through to it, and this could not be tolerated. All the Coltanis knew there would be a price to pay for this outrage. The Decepticons glared down at their beaten foes who had caused so much trouble with their engines running roughly.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

As ex-Corporation bots lined up sadly or sullenly at DomIntel offices, and other Decepticons spoke of the events in hushed or solemn whispers, there was one area that was having a much different response. Big glasses of Energon Supreme, confetti, live music, dancing, and cheering filled the buildings and streets of Copperclad, which were now lined with hastily-but-perfectly drawn banners with "INTERPLANETARY COMMERCE COMMISSION" written on them in festive fonts along with their logo, which looked like some sort of government seal, though not one obviously from any particular nation. For the Commission, today was a day of ultimate celebration.

In the city center, the noise level dropped just a bit as a fancy bot with red wings and legs, a blue torso, and gold accents ascended a hastily-built stage. This was Connection, usually referred to simply as Connect. He was the Chief Commissioner of the organization and the short form of his name was, in some foreign dialects, a term for a drug dealer. He made it a point to look as snappy as possible in order to present a direct contrast to his archrival Masher. Unlike most bots, who just put their complementary color on the hands, feet, and head, Connect had specially painted "shirtcuffs" at the wrists and gold-plated weld beads at his wing edges. His general demeanor was usually just a little snooty, but today, the huge level of excitement caused that to drop.

"Commissioners...commissioners!" He called for attention from his group's members, holding up his right hand as he did so. When he had some eyes on him, he continued on. "Today is the greatest day in the history of Cybertron other than the Days of Victory for the Nation," he announced. "As we all know" - he ducked slightly as a long strip of confetti landed on him - "Today marks the end of the most overrated, misled, violent, and pervasive syndicate in the Empire!" Cheers roared back so loud that the streets literally rumbled with the resonance. "That means that TODAY, WE! The Interplanetary Commerce Commission! Are THE biggest and best multidisciplinary syndicate in Victorious Decepticons!!" Cheers went up again, this time even louder.

"Today marks the last time someone will look at one of us and say, 'oh, Commission,' as if that's some kind of inferior thing!" He gestured again, now serious about calling for silence. The volume level dropped, though loud partying still went on not far away from the city center. "All of the Corporation's planets are up for grabs. They're only watched by small security forces, and currently, not all of those forces have picked up the announcement, so they're still with the IOPC. But soon, they will be getting the message from DomIntel that the IOPC is banned and that they have to go to the offices to prove their loyalty. And when that happens, these parties must cease. We must fly to make those worlds COMMISSION territory!"

"Meanwhile, IOPC competitors are selling drugs on inhabited worlds. We will leave these guys in place, but now, they'll have to buy OUR products in order to stay in business. The price of dope will be goin' UP everywhere, because hey - they should have been buying from us all along and they weren't. So now they get to pay double!" Cheers went up at the thought of sticking it to the IOPC's old dealer network and bringing more money into the new organization.

"Now, there's one last thing. We need to be watching all sorts of foreign judges and dignitaries too, because all the ones who were in the IOPC's side panels will be looking for their bribe money from Masher and IT ISN'T COMING! So when we see some that seem to be mad for no reason, we have to be ready to get 'em in OUR side panels. We don't have enough commissioners to hit 'em all at once, but I've got a list of key personnel. After this party ends tomorrow, we shall start the work of taking over the remains of 'Da Corpa'ration!'" Loud cheers went up once again, and as soon as the Chief Commissioner stopped talking, confetti was dropped down around him, the music returned to its original loud volume and the Energon began to be poured some more.

~~~~~~~~~~

Space, on the far side of Coltan

Before the Decepticons arrived, Masher and his remaining followers took off. Masher made sure to throw several items into a glider-trailer before he left. Some of the things included plenty of spare Energon, a spare Quantum Processor, a Processor manual and blueprint he'd made after his last problem, and his safe. He wasn't thrilled about taking the safe, but knew that if he left it, Megatron would melt that down as scrap even if he didn't find the cursed boards within - and he didn't want that hacker getting out to cause him more problems, or worse, hacking Megatron and then using that power to screw everything up beyond all predictable levels.

It quickly became obvious to Red Diamond, the IOPC contingent, and the few Coltanis who had come along that Masher knew exactly where he was going. He flew strongly, and entered FTL before the Decepticons had a chance to get around to that side of the planet. The others followed, and found themselves heading 19 lightyears away. Eventually, Masher signaled that they would be dropping speed soon, and they came out of FTL in front of a treacherous asteroid belt made of iron-based rocks.

Carefully, Masher and the others picked their way through the swarm of obstacles, which would be deadly to run into at any kind of fast speed. Upon getting near the middle of the thick belt, they had to stop and refuel because the going was so slow. Then, after another full day of slow floating/flying through the deadly field, they found themselves suddenly under gravitational pull. In the direction of the pull, asteroids could be seen spontaneously igniting. Masher allowed himself to fall along with the asteroids that had become caught up in the gravity, and the others nervously followed suit.

After many minutes of falling, Masher fired his jets. "Come on, guys, we's outta da burnoff zone now. Da rest should be easy flyin'." As promised, it was. The small rocks burned off in the atmosphere of this new world, which was hidden deep within what had appeared to be a random space debris field, and this left the robots free from the threat of damage after that point. The others looked around, and weren't originally thrilled when they saw what seemed to be a murky brown sky. Further descent, however, proved that "sky" to be no more than an exterior cloud layer made of the dust from the burned-up rocks.

Once past that, the sky opened up to a golden metallic shade with a sun showing through at one side. The sun's light was greatly diffused by the cloud/dust layer, and it seemed almost as if the glowing orb had to make a special effort to show at all. Yet, enough light was present to support photosynthesis, and as the robots got even lower, miles of lush jungle were plainly visible. Smoke curled up from sporadic locations, apparently from intentionally-set fires judging by how contained it was.

Masher headed straight to a huge mesa that towered over the rest of the land. There was plenty enough room there for everyone to set down, and to their relief, they found that it was made mostly of solid rock, with just a couple of feet of soft soil above that. As they landed on their feet, they noticed about 10 tall, 2-legged creatures with long muzzles that immediately bowed down. Masher gave the beings a wave and proceeded to open a side panel. He then took out what appeared to be a bit of cocaine and sprinkled some into the hands of each being. The hands looked like an evolutionary mid-point between paws and human hands, with padded palms and smaller paw-style pads at the tip of each finger. They said something that sounded like it could be deep thanks, and quickly went off to the side of the mesa and huddled in a group. There, it because obvious that the substance was indeed coke as they used flat rocks to form it into lines and snort it up. They were clearly more energetic after doing this, and waved happily before returning to whatever they'd been doing, now moving more quickly.

"It's always good ta be generous when ya find a new planet dat ya can't drill out yet," Masher said, not quite chuckling but seeming to want to. "Den da peeps are glad ta see ya when ya come back, instead'a suddenly figurin' out whatta SAM is, ya know?!"

"Anyway, I calls dis joint here Invisius. Cuz it's invisible ta scannas. An' troops. Neva would'a found it myself if I didn't get caught in dem damn rocks out dere. I figured dat afta I picked t'rough 'em, dere'd just be more space. But instead...dere was dis place! As for da peeps, dey're more akin ta da Canis development branch of Earth life den da Primate one. Which basically means dat dey can be real friendly an' loyal, or dey can try ta bite yer armor off. An' dey take a long time ta train fer anyt'ing more advanced den 'fetch,' t'ough once dey get somet'in down, dey usually rememba it fer a long time as long as dey get a treat."

"Now givin' 'em dog treats - plain ol' Version 1.0 Earthian ones - works just fine if ya wanna spend a lotta time teachin' 'em stuff. But dey learn how ta get a COKE treat 10 times as fast, cuz dey really want dat. Still, it's best ta use dog treats fer trainin' or else dey also forget da lesson fasta. But none'a dat's really important yet cuz dere aren't enough dog-t'ings in any one area ta do our work fer us. It's just good ta keep 'em friendly, ya know? Ottawise dey start chewin' on yer stuff."

"Oh, and dey're primitive. Sticks 'n spears primitive. Not even bows. Which is good. Cuz dat also means dere ain't no radios n' stuff here fer dem ta use ta go yappin' ta da whole universe. It's one'a da reasons I brought us here."

Soon after, Masher would explain that there was oil shale in one direction, water - and Canis Sapiens - in another, and in yet another, they would find some of the most important things on this planet: Iron ore nearby, and a big carbon deposit further out. In the final direction, there were plenty of big tree-like things. "Dat's actually a bamboo-like plant," Masher said. "Grows quick. And burns hot enough for foundry fires."

Despite all of these raw materials, it would be a while before Masher and the others could start a factory and replace the lost Corporation members with a new race of their own. They still needed fine quartz, which they could grind to sand and use to make silicon. They would also need to make a proper refinery, rather than a field Energon still, in order to turn the oil in the shale into the materials needed to make hoses and other plastic internal body parts. Finally, they'd also need to dig up enough mud and sand to make a factory building.

"Hey," one of the IOPC bots said. "It sounds like you were planning on ending up here all along!" He was clearly pissed and wondering if Masher had a glitch. Had he expected to lose!?

"Of course not!" Masher said. "Yous can see I ain't done any buildin' here. But everyone in any kinda biznezz knows dat it's a good idea to have a hedge. I neva intend ta have unfortunate results. Otta'wise, dey wouldn't be UNfortunate results! But I likes ta have insurance. I just don't talk about insurance cuz a lotta da guys would say I wasn't confident or sometin'. Still. It's neva good ta let it be so you can get caught wit' yer panels completely open wit'out any recourse."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Coltan

Megatron was shocked that the Coltanis actually surrendered peacefully. He had originally been pleased with Masher's surrender speech, but on the way over, had started to think that it had to be a trick. Only after having his troops fly all around the planet was he finally convinced that it wasn't.

Megatron then accepted the surrender, and noted that a huge percentage of the Coltanis were already deactivated. "Because you have cooperated, and you've already tasted the might of my Military and recognized the futility of further hostility against us, I won't make the punishment nearly as harsh as I normally would," Megatron said. "However, I'm telling you now - I don't have the patience for slow change. I see several glitches here that have to be fixed, and will be bringing in my mechanics and Debuggers starting tomorrow."

"First, Masher has stuck you with an anti-classism hack. This is communist nonsense and will only hold you back. If you cannot recognize that you have betters and lessers, you cannot get proper motivation to better yourselves! My first order is that you are to go to my Debuggers the moment they arrive and get this monstrosity of a patch eliminated!"

"Second, Masher set up a bunch of free mechanic's shops for the poor. That's not how to do things! I will do what he should have. I am ordering a Planet-Wide Mechanical Upgrade for this planet. Every one of you will be upgraded to a better design spec at the same time. Within a month, there will be no such thing as a Coltani who is weak compared to his fellows, though of course, you will NOT be brought to Decepticon standards since you are of the Defeated."

"Once these basic things are set right, almost all laws other than those against treason will be immediately repealed. Yes, there will be fighting. Yes, not all will make it through. And in this way, weakness shall be purged and strength glorified. There will be just two laws left in force that isn't one about some kind of treason or against blasphemy and heresy against my religion. For the next 100 years, you shall pay a punitive tax of 50 percent, in the form of resources, to the Decepticon Empire. The second is that you shall all be conscripted, in rotations, into the Coltan Defense Force. This force will, as you can expect if you have any RAM, be weaker than the Decepticon Military - but it will be strong enough to deter random forces from trying to take this rock."

"Finally, there is the matter of religion. Masherism is flat-out used oil sludge that he set up to try to keep my religion from spreading. It is now banned. Instead, the religion of the planet shall be Megatronism, as it is in the rest of the Empire." Megatron made gestures to some of the generals, who quickly sent orders through their communicators. "All Masherist temples will be dismantled starting right now, and anything valuable within them shall be confiscated and melted down."

"Of course, hardly anyone will instantly believe in a new religion. You all are to attend Megatronist services anyway, starting the moment my Temples open. There, you will be taught the REAL Decepticon Way and not Masher's watered-down version. If you take what my Priests say seriously, you'll find that you become stronger, more confident, and smarter people. And someday, you might even be able to become real Decepticons and successful raiders - as long as you never again try to raid the Decepticon Empire itself!"

"Finally, as you should expect, any sort of insurrection, rebellion, sedition, or anything else of that nature - including talking in favor of it - will bring the death penalty. There is no slow increase in punishment with me. If you rebel, you get terminated and I use your metal to make real Decepticons, and that is that."

"Are there any questions?" Megatron added, wondering if this culture would result in a response of silence or if he'd be bombarded with them like he was after taking over certain parts of Earth.

Megatron had been tempted to go ahead and genocide the place at first, though he didn't admit that. When he got here though, he saw - like Masher - that this planet had potential. But first, he would have to get rid of all of the wimps and all of the people who thought that just any raid was a great idea. He figured that, with all of the laws gone (other than the few he mentioned), it wouldn't take long for this objective to be completed. Soon enough, there would be no room left for the weak, leaving him with only the strong to mold into proper, loyal, Decepticon warriors ready to take the immigration test. To help speed the transition, he would offer commissions for Decepticon civilians to set up new foundries here - foundries that operated under the brutal principles promoted by Megatron Metals.

For just a moment, Megatron glanced at Loyal Star. The name certainly fit! But before he talked to him, he wanted to make sure that he didn't leave the Coltanis with any obvious questions or misunderstandings.

Back on Cybertron

The gang were surprised when the external computer verified the lack of security at the refinery that MasterBlaster had pointed out. "Well," they said to MasterBlaster, "that's certainly interesting. Tell you what: Meet us at the Dirt Patch, and we'll see what else you've got. Then we can talk about specifics. Or not, if it turns out you're a wimp." It was a small, run-down arena in a lower-class area far from the gang's actual base. Its lack of prestige meant that the fights that happened there went without much, if any, publicity - and it was perfect for establishing a command order without letting the gang's official boss know that anything was seriously amiss. If the new guy came to nothing, they could go back to the status quo without suffering any retribution - while if he turned out to be a better fighter than any of them, they could all then jump on the old boss without him knowing to prepare in advance.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

For the bots of the Interplanetary Commerce Commission, it felt like Christmas did for Vallermooreians. Not only had they managed to already get their hands on a full one tenth of the IOPCs stuff on Cybertron (another quarter had fallen to Domintel and the Military and the rest to random ordinary bots) but with the IOPC now an illegal organisation in the Decepticon Empire, they were now the number one gang. Whilst Iron City was in deep mourning, the ICC's home city of Copperclad was in full party mode. It was in fact such a big party that ordinary bots who were not ICC members were invited, on the basis that the bigger the party was the better. In fact there were three areas within it, each cordoned off by the Decepticon equivalent of velvet ropes, and the generally unspoken threat of blaster fire for gate crashers. In the first circle were all manner of bots as long as the ICC had no problems with them. In the second were the adjuncts of the ICC, the mercenaries and prospect members, along with a few of the ICC's best customers who had spent a large amount of Energon at the ICCs shops. In the third circle were the full members of the ICC itself, with Connection at the centre.

He made it clear to his jubilant bots that tomorrow they would be taking over as much as they could, and that it was they who were the number one gang now.

*****
The Dirt Patch

MasterBlaster suggested "As we all took a few small wounds from those dammed Coltani beta bots, I suggest that we all go and fix them first as the wounds won't fix themselves." That made a lot of sense; although the damage done was just the equivalent of bruises and a few cuts on a biological, no bot wanted to be fighting for dominance with an even slightly damaged body, so they agreed. Not long afterwards, after going home and doing a bit of wound fixing, MasterBlaster flew out and met the now fully fixed gang at the Dirt Patch. It was here that all the Energon he had spent on a Remediator-level body would be really put to the test. If he wanted to lead these bots, he would have to beat each one in single combat, and whilst they were not quite Scrounger-level armed and armoured, they were pretty tough in their own right. If he did beat them, he would then have to hope his raid on that sapient pony planet went well and brought in lots of tasty Energon. The more successful raids he led them on, the more they would like him.

*****
Space, on the far side of Coltan

Amongst the stuff Masher took with him was the cursed mind-boards of Red Diamond. Funny as it might be if Megatron melted them down and then got hacked as a result, a hacked, Satanic Megatron would cause a huge hassle for everybody in the entire universe including him, and was not worth the trouble.

When they were on their new home, Red Diamond said "They'll never find us here. What a good place to rest, relax, and then start turning into a place fit for robots and then making new bots once the heat dies down. Bots that, for now at least, are hard-coded to avoid raiding Cybertron or anywhere that would really bring down the wrath of Megatron on us-until we have an Empire as great or greater then theirs and a real chance of a successful revolt. And then we can avenge Coltan's loss." For him and the other Coltanis, even rain was not particularly unpleasant-he was used to it on Coltan, where occasionally it had even rained in the richer areas. They had a long way to go to really make this their home, but were looking forward to starting it.
*****
Coltan

Megatron very nearly publically backfired, which would not have looked very dignified for the Ultimate Decepticon. He sent his army circling the planet, looking for Coltani ambushes. Surely they would not just roll over on the ground and flip open their panels so quickly? He knew if it were the other way round, he would be planning a trap rather then surrendering Cybertron to any foreign army. Soon he found the surrender was genuine, and told them the surrender terms. "Because you have cooperated, and you've already tasted the might of my Military and recognized the futility of further hostility against us, I won't make the punishment nearly as harsh as I normally would," Megatron said. "However, I'm telling you now - I don't have the patience for slow change. I see several glitches here that have to be fixed, and will be bringing in my mechanics and Debuggers starting tomorrow."

Much as he might despise and dislike the Coltanis, to just go in and genocide them after they had surrendered unconditionally would mean that every other planet would just fight to the last instead of giving in. Behind Megatron the Genocide Battalion felt disappointed, although they knew a lot better then to say that aloud. Still, in a situation like this, every member of the Battalion could guess what the others were thinking.

"First, Masher has stuck you with an anti-classism hack. This is communist nonsense and will only hold you back. If you cannot recognize that you have betters and lessers, you cannot get proper motivation to better yourselves! My first order is that you are to go to my Debuggers the moment they arrive and get this monstrosity of a patch eliminated!"

There were wild cheers as most Coltanis heartily disliked having been hacked in the first place. In fact, they had very nearly decided to treat Masher like they did King Coal when the news had got out. It had only been his vast popularity that had kept him from being booted. Robot life, Decepticon or not, hated hackers.


"Second, Masher set up a bunch of free mechanic's shops for the poor. That's not how to do things! I will do what he should have. I am ordering a Planet-Wide Mechanical Upgrade for this planet. Every one of you will be upgraded to a better design spec at the same time. Within a month, there will be no such thing as a Coltani who is weak compared to his fellows, though of course, you will NOT be brought to Decepticon standards since you are of the Defeated."

That got a little polite applause, whilst the poor bots looked unhappy but knew better then to boo and get blasted for it. If the upgrade had not been planet wide, all it would have done was set up a new elite class instead of letting violence settle the issue of who was on top as far as Coltanis were concerned.

"Once these basic things are set right, almost all laws other than those against treason will be immediately repealed. Yes, there will be fighting. Yes, not all will make it through. And in this way, weakness shall be purged and strength glorified. There will be just two laws left in force that isn't one about some kind of treason or against blasphemy and heresy against my religion. For the next 100 years, you shall pay a punitive tax of 50 percent, in the form of resources, to the Decepticon Empire. The second is that you shall all be conscripted, in rotations, into the Coltan Defense Force. This force will, as you can expect if you have any RAM, be weaker than the Decepticon Military - but it will be strong enough to deter random forces from trying to take this rock."

Some bots were looking forward to the lack of laws, others were clearly scared. All were sadly resigned to paying these high taxes for the trouble they had caused and the damage they had done to the Decepticon Military. Few minded being conscripted.

"Finally, there is the matter of religion. Masherism is flat-out used oil sludge that he set up to try to keep my religion from spreading. It is now banned. Instead, the religion of the planet shall be Megatronism, as it is in the rest of the Empire. All Masherist temples will be dismantled starting right now, and anything valuable within them shall be confiscated and melted down."

The few Masherist Priests realized that they needed a new repainting quickly and would need new careers, although one or two, the genuinely religious bots, were thinking that they might be able to pass the tests to become Priests of Megatron.

"Of course, hardly anyone will instantly believe in a new religion. You all are to attend Megatronist services anyway, starting the moment my Temples open. There, you will be taught the REAL Decepticon Way and not Masher's watered-down version. If you take what my Priests say seriously, you'll find that you become stronger, more confident, and smarter people. And someday, you might even be able to become real Decepticons and successful raiders - as long as you never again try to raid the Decepticon Empire itself! Finally, as you should expect, any sort of insurrection, rebellion, sedition, or anything else of that nature - including talking in favor of it - will bring the death penalty. There is no slow increase in punishment with me. If you rebel, you get terminated and I use your metal to make real Decepticons, and that is that."

The Coltanis clearly understood what would happen if they acted up, and just in case, Domintel would be installed on this planet for the foreseeable future in case there were traitors around. One they, they might earn the right to have their own Coltani Domintel instead.

"Are there any questions?"

Whilst he was not bombarded with questions there were a few. "What about those bots who before your arrival were serving hacked prison terms? Do we let them all out now, sell them as slaves, or a mixture of the two?"

"Is all Coding to stop until Decepticon Coding rules have been introduced? Not all new bots at the moment are Coded to your standards."

"Which planets are firmly off limits for Coltani raiding, and which are ok?"

And "So we can have whatever weapons we can buy now? Or are strong blasters banned in case one day a revolt does kick off? King Crap had pretty strong laws on who could have powerful blasters."

Megatron took a quick look, for a few seconds, at Loyal Star. What is it with pony names and how well they fit the pony? Whilst he may have kept his old pony name, it's certainly fits him just as well now he is one of us. So soon after doing one thing that pleased me, he and his scrying crystal prevented a surprise attack on Cybertron that would have done much more damage to the Metal Planet. Whilst he can't be ordinated until after his first conscription stint, he certainly deserves some sort of reward. And that scrying crystal could be used for so much.

*****
Loyal Star looked back and smiled. His God that he had been through so much for was clearly pleased with him.







*****

[Victorious Decepticons]

Coltan

Megatron was pleased that one of his pronouncements actually got cheers. Usually when the Decepticons invaded something, the population would listen in stony silence while mentally plotting his assassination. He was, however, disturbed at the response to his announcement of a planet-wide upgrade. On Cybertron, such pronouncements were met with cheers because they meant free upgrades without having to wait for a military stint to start! Often, they ended up saving the lives of rustbuckets who ordinarily wouldn't have lasted long enough.

Rather than comment on that, Megatron decided to answer the questions.

"All prisoners, except political ones, are to be released as soon as my Debuggers can clear their viruses. This should happen starting tomorrow." He began. The prohibition on releasing political prisoners meant that those who were captured when fleeing Masher earlier would remain Decepticon property. Megatron had no sympathy for cowards, and figured that those bots should have been busy overthrowing Masher themselves rather than fleeing.

"As for new offspring, yes, all Coding is to cease until the Minimum Specification for Code Intended to be Sapient, Coltani Variant, has been released here and disseminated to all adults. This Variant will be designed for your OS, and will also preserve enough cultural traits that the results will be Coltani. However, it will be fully tested to ensure system stability, include improved subroutines for determining raid targets, and include a reduction in the desire to just 'get a job and be safe.'" Megatron involuntarily curled his lip at the idea of prioritizing safety to the point that his servant back on Earth did. "Another thing the new Specification will do is reconcile Code that says to raid everything in sight without making the proper calculations of victory chance - a very unsafe habit, as you now see - and the call for a high amount of safety in other areas. You'll likely see an increase in the lifespan of your offsprings' logic chips with this doublethink removed from the Base Code."

"I will also be closely examining Masher's Specifications for adults, and if I find any fundamental errors, will strongly suggest a patch. It's understandable if you currently have a distrust for government patches considering what Masher did - and I curse him for that egregious breach of trust - so instead of having Debugging do a direct install, I will specify that they write any patch Code so that you can see it for yourselves and then compile and install it yourselves. This is not how we do things on Cybertron. There, Debuggers handle all aspects of Coding repairs. It's a more reliable system since it's not subject to meddling by patients who aren't expert Coders. However, for now, I'll allow the system I just mentioned rather than have everyone going around glitched. As before, upgrades and repairs to the hardware associated with mind-code will be handled by Debugging rather than Mechanical."

"For weaponry: It is the Decepticon Way to have no bans on weaponry. If you can get it, you can own it, with only one exception. Since you don't know all of the unspoken cultural taboos, I will make it official that you may not own a fusion cannon on par or greater than my own. This is a matter of protocol, however. If you come up with some other kind of weapon that meets that level of power, you may own it. Yes, we are that confident. And yes, I know that some people will see that as an opening and try to fire away. To those people, I warn that there are no trials. We will fire immediately upon detecting a threat, regardless of whether the other person has managed to fire first or whether he seems to stand any chance, and we will fire with the intention of causing permanent deactivation of the hostile person."

"Also, while I have not yet been briefed on your protocols for training young Coltanis, I will mention this just in case it currently involves the use of normal-looking weapons. All training weapons - those intentionally made to fire non-lethal rounds or loads, or fire nonlethally-powered blasts - must be marked according to the specifications which will be publicized. Any weapon without such markings will be assumed to be the real thing. And, before anyone gets the idea of using false markings to hide a powerful weapon, be warned that if a normal weapon is detected and is mispainted, we will assume that the intention is to do an ambush and we will open fire with full power immediately."

"I see no need, nor much use, in banning weapons due to the possibility of revolt. If there are enough rebels for them to win, the leader isn't worthy of his position. It is, of course, my assumption that any such rebels will at least try to be worthy adversaries [he said this as if the very idea of a rebel being worthy was ridiculous] and know how to get whatever weapons and ordnance they think will work, regardless of legality."

"As for raiding! Legally speaking, any planet that isn't Decepticon government property is on the table. In reality, however, what I've seen of Coltan tells me that you will get stomped if you try to raid anything above what we'd call a Class 2 target in military parlance. In plain Binary, that means that you should stay away from anything with SAMs or above, at least for now, and you should be careful about any place that can defend its installations with .50 cal rifles or decent rockets. Your armor is woeful and your tactics and strategy match it. I would suggest not going after anything with any defense to note until the Planet-Wide Upgrade and at least one military stint. With the Upgrade, you'll be immune to serious damage from most .50 cal fire - although you'll still have to watch out for your most vital parts - and only specialized rockets will be of concern."

This meant that, compared to Decepticons, Coltanis would still be quite weak indeed. However, any raid target with tech below that of Earth's Korean War '(approximately) would be very likely to lose, assuming the Coltani raiders didn't do anything too boneheaded. Even on planets with better technology, the raiders would have a good chance as long as the specific target was too far away from the defender's military bases for the defender to get there quickly enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~

After finishing his commentary, Megatron went over to where Loyal Star waited. "Your crystal was a great help to the government," he said. "That intel completely messed up Masher's silly plan. I also appreciate your decision to come aid us during this takeover. I only wish I could ordain you right now! Alas, Decepticon culture would never stand for it. No one is anything until they prove themselves as soldiers. This must remain as a Decepticon trait, for it is one of the pillars of our national strength."

"That, however, doesn't mean that you can't be rewarded. When we return to Cybertron, I shall present you with a Silver Stripe for Outstanding Service to the Empire as a Civilian. The details, however, MUST remain secret. No one outside me, High Command, and Intelligence is to know about that 'little device' you used back there. Speaking of that, come over here with me..."

The two went to a secluded area, which Megatron then EMPed against bugs before speaking again. "Let's see that device in action, please. Show me where Masher is now." Megatron, of course, knew that it was a crystal, not a machine. He used the word "device" to mislead any nosy people who might overhear him, and help keep them from finding out its true nature. No one was in sight in this spot, so it wasn't necessary to hide the crystal itself for now.

To Megatron's dismay, the crystal showed Masher, about a hundred IOPC loyalists, and about 575 Coltanis on another planet far away. The worst part was the sky, which he recognized. His eye lights narrowed and his engine harumphed with displeasure.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he went to that despicable planet!" Megatron spat. He gave Loyal Star a short description of the massive asteroid field that he knew was there. Clearly, he wasn't hot to send his military through the deadly debris. "Tune in a bit more; let's see what kind of supplies he has."

Megatron was quite pleased to see that Masher had very little in the way of Energon and apparently no coolant or engine oil in reserve. "Perhaps they'll all die after all. They'll have to move fast if they don't want to shut down before the week is out." He had Loyal Star tune out, and then said, "I'm sure you know that I want one of these things for myself. Even though it only seems good for looking rather than doing, it looks like it could save me a lot of energy..."

One thing did not show up on the crystal: the safe. Yahweh, who had still been paying attention to everything regarding the Decepticons and their leader, knew that Megatron would be overly curious as to why Masher bothered to take a tiny safe with him even though its exterior did not betray its contents. It was a simple matter to make sure that the entire safe didn't appear to any sort of remote viewing method, and therefore, didn't cause any desire to go steal it.

"I'll be here on Coltan for a few days to make sure everything gets set up right," Megatron told Loyal Star. "After that, the award ceremony can take place - on Cybertron, where it should be."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Invisius

Masher and the others were quite aware that they'd have to get Energon in a hurry or all else would be for naught. Thanks to the presence of IOPC personnel, the group had many field still and oil extraction parts between its members. They quickly flew to where the shale was, and soon, the area was filled with Masher's complaints along with some others. Oil in shale rock was solid, and in order to extract it, it first had to be heated until it melted. This meant that a significant amount of power had to be spent before they'd get anything back.

"Aren't there any real oil fields around here?!" A few engineers asked.
"Yeah - on the other side of da planet, unda a bayou!" Masher responded, just as disgruntled as everyone else. "Why ya t'ink I ain't drilled dis place yet!?" A bayou was about the worst terrain for giant, heavy robots. Though bayou water is often shallow, it sits atop soft, muddy aquifers that can't support a Decepticon's weight. The Decepticon will therefore sink until hitting rock, which can be hundreds of feet below. While the robots can work around this problem with engineering or even big "clown shoes" that distribute their weight, it isn't worth it when there are plenty of planets around with oil in more accessible places.

Upon this revelation, the others got to work. A big, heat-proof pipe was assembled, and the robots used their own hydraulic power to ram it down into the shale. Then, Masher began to fire a controlled blast down the pipe to heat the shale. As this went on, the others rammed new pipes down close-by, and eventually, turned on their pumps.

Meanwhile, some Coltanis who had come along watched with fascination. They were amazed at how the IOPC had what appeared to be the equipment for an entire drilling operation right on them, in the form of collapsed and dismantled pieces that had been in their panels. The Coltanis were also amazed at the obvious level of practice the IOPC had at putting all of this together and getting it running. All of this was far more advanced than the usual Coltani method, which involved towing equipment into place in glider-trailers.

"Dis is our main biz," Masher said, noticing the amazed faces. "We only got inta da syndicate biz afta' about 300 years a' straight-up oil raidin'. An' we kept on raidin', too - oil is a hot commodity." He continued blasting heat down his pipe as the rest of the work went on. "So yeah. We're real good at gettin' da Elixer a' Life."

Soon, oil was coming up the other pipes, and the field stills were set up to turn it into Energon. Collapsible Cubes were popped open to collect the haul. While this haul wouldn't satisfy manufacturing needs, it would ensure that everyone was able to satisfy their fuel demands.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron - The Dirt Patch

The arena was somewhat dilapidated, but it served its purpose as the gang members arrived. First, a strong-looking bot stepped up. "You might as well challenge me first," he said. "If you can't beat me, you surely won't beat any of the others." He was clearly proud of his fighting ability, and had apparently come in at #2 - right after the old boss - when he'd done his original challenge. This challenger had a built-up chest, but only a light helmet and general armor for the rest of his body. MasterBlaster noticed that the opponent was also running his foot-jets at very low power. Doing so would counteract some of his weight and make him lighter on his feet than his body implied.

Around them, people from the area started filing into the stands. It was rare for there to be fights here anymore, and even rarer for the combatants to have decent amounts of armor. The arena had quickly put the word out, and for 10 Cubes each, people were able to come and watch the combat.

[Vallermoore]

Coltan

As Megatron's decrees were relayed on the holovision a lot of things happened. Coding stopped temporarily, although none of the partly built bots were taken apart. Instead they would have to wait for a while, until there were the Debuggers to in effect bring them into the world properly. Prisoners held for crime would have rejoiced noisily, but for now their hack viruses did not allow this.
Political prisoners would have wailed if they could, as they would stay as robotic slaves. One of the prisons was for now, to hold any prisoners who were not to be freed, whilst the others were to be either used as military bases and the like or would be put up for sale. Certain prison guards, those who had maltreated the hacked prisoners, made themselves scarce and considered a new coat of paint or indeed a mind transfer to a spare body, or both. Certain bosses thought they could now be as nasty to their free workers as they wanted to; only to find that their companies would soon be raided by the angry workface and robbed to the four walls. After a few months of that sort of thing, things would stabilize in the same way that they had on Cybertron. The worst bosses had been blasted out of existence by sheer numbers or forced to flee.

In the short term, businesses would be engaged in battle, but after a year or two, things would stabilize there too. Most business-bots really did not want to spend their whole time fighting others, but they didn't tolerate examples of the same business within a certain proximity of their own. Large companies could hire security guards, which were legal, and claim much more *territory*, but they knew if they tried to claim it all, the small bots might join together and fight back, or hire professional assassins. Toy shops selling toy blasters would have to temporarily withdraw them until they were updated.

In the short term there would be various Line vendettas and feuds but again, these would be sorted out in a year or two, one way or the other.

Being rich, the bots who had served under King Coal and then under Masher as judges and magistrates were well armoured and armed, and could fend off most bots who came looking for revenge. Some would join into a de facto gang, the Judge Dreads, for mutual protection. Over time as they became more used to the new ways of Coltani life, they would evolve into the first main criminal syndicate on Coltan, and given enough time, would become as powerful on Coltan as the International Commerce Commission was on Cybertron. The other major crime syndicate that formed on Coltan shortly afterwards called themselves simply The Company, was formed from the ex criminal prisoners, and had a great dislike of the Judge Dreads and in fact judges and magistrates on any planet. Underneath these two thousands of smaller raider gangs would form. For now, they tended to raid planets with the tech of what had been North Korea on Earth, or below. As everything to the east of Coltan was Decepticon controlled, "going west" became a euphemism for raiding.

*****
If Loyal Star had still been a sapient pony, his tail would have been flicking excitedly all over the place when his God came over with a purring engine and warmly glowing eyes. If he had served his first conscription period he would have been ordinated there and then; and personally by Megatron as well. When he found he had earned a Silver Stripe for Outstanding Service to the Empire as a Civilian, a quick check in his mind boards revealed that to be in Vallermooreian terms, the equivalent of a Star of Vallermoore, 2nd class. In effect, he had earned the second highest medal possible in the Decepticon Empire. Not many bots and even fewer immigrants earned one of those! Megatron carried on speaking. "The details, however, MUST remain secret. No one outside me, High Command, and Intelligence is to know about that 'little device' you used back there. Speaking of that, come over here with me..."

Soon the Crystal was fired up again and in Megatron's hands. Megatron showed a bit of anger and explained about the asteroid field. This was not like the one in Earth's systems were the rocks were miles apart-it was a genuine threat to anyone flying through it. As soon as Loyal Star turned out, Megatron said "I'm sure you know that I want one of these things for myself. Even though it only seems good for looking rather than doing, it looks like it could save me a lot of energy..."

Loyal Star said "As your acolyte, I think you should keep the scrying crystal. If I were to fall victim to some domestic raider and the crystal fell into the hands of some filthy traitor, the traitor could use it to spy on you and your High Generals. Any domestic raider who tried to target you would be foundry food very quickly. When I have been awarded my Stripe, I would like to start serving my first conscription stint so that afterwards I may be ordained and hopefully be granted missionary status to spread the faith outside the Empire. And don't worry, when I get asked how I earned my Stripe, I will just reply that it is classified information."

Invisius

After the oil was flowing, Red Diamond pointed out "In the long term, we will need shelter from the elements unless we want to rust like the poor bots did under King Crap. My armour won't start rusting as it is for a few weeks."

*****

Cybertron - The Dirt Patch

The arena owner was very pleased that a good fight would happen in his arena, and soon more then a thousand bots would be watching. That made him more then 10,000 Cubes.

MasterBlaster's body turned down pain senses to 30%, turned his Bravery Up to 90%, and powered up his blasters. "The fight is to the body, obviously not to the death," the bot announced. Before the battle began, each bot announced their name to the crowd, so the winner would gain an enhanced reputation as a bot not to be messed with.

"I am MasterBlaster," MasterBlaster said loudly, raising his blasters menacingly, ready to do battle as soon as the fight began. "And I want to become the leader of this gang!"

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
The Dirt Patch

"And I'm Brutal," the first challenger responded. "And now that we have another member, namely you, *I* won't have to do any recruiting once I show that *I* am the strongest and take the number one spot!" He readied the blaster on his right arm. At this point, it became apparent that his left arm held a slightly different type of barreled weapon.

From the side of the arena, a voice yelled "FIGHT!" and the combat began. The one calling the start of the fighting was provided by the arena operator as a neutral initiator. This prevented one side from knowing in advance when the call would come and thereby having an advantage. Such services weren't usually standard, but this arena's operator suggested it - for a cost of 100 Cubes - mainly as a way to bring more money into what had been a failing venue. The combatants accepted the service, figuring that since this wasn't a duel to the death, it was best to maintain a perception of fairness rather than risk later rematches.

As soon as the call to fight went out, Brutal fired his left-arm weapon, releasing a powerful explosive shell that flew toward MasterBlaster. Almost instantly after, he fired his blaster. Meanwhile, he began to go into a dancing maneuver.

Up in the stands, the spectators watched carefully and quietly. They hadn't made any bets yet since they weren't familiar with any of the combatants, but they would use the outcome of this fight to determine who to bet on in any matches that followed, and how big their bets would be.

~~~~~~~~~~

Later, Megatron would call an award ceremony for Loyal Star. There, he presented the new immigrant with a silver stripe, which was painted on by an official who had been called to the occasion. Before the painting, Megatron announced that the award was for "providing technology shown to be very useful to the operations of the Decepticon Government and security of the Empire." The details, of course, were kept secret. In fact, by calling the item "technology," Megatron gave listeners a false impression and sent several would-be copycats, including Replicator, on wild goose chases.

It wasn't long after the ceremony ended that Loyal Star would have his first serious encounter with the Cybertronian underworld. On his way home, he was met by a bot with government-like markings. This bot smoothly informed him that he had an offer that Loyal Star wouldn't be able to refuse. He then offered a cool million Cubes for whatever it was that earned him that silver stripe.

Meanwhile, DomIntel agents at the local office listened to the bugs in the area with riveted interest. Would Loyal Star say yes, just say no...or, like a true Decepticon, sell the million-Cube guy something completely different?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Invisius

Masher didn't have to think too long about what to do for shelter. "We's gonna take care'a da first buildins African or South American jungle style," he informed the rest. "Dis is an old way of makin' houses on Eart'. What we's gonna do is make what dey called 'rammed earth' construction. We's perfectly suited ta make dis kinda buildin', unlike da ones who t'ought of it. Dey were puny, light humans, and we's are big, strong robots wit' hydraulics!"

He went on to describe what would need to be done. First, everyone needed to fly closer to a river, but not so close that the immediate area had full humidity. Then, they'd have to cut down a bunch of trees and turn those into boards. "Dis'll be da most tedious part," Masher said. "Da trees here are big, but da buildin's we need are so much bigga dat it'll take a lot of 'em anyway."

Once the boards were made, they'd be used to create frameworks the thickness of a wall, but not too tall. After that, mud needed to be made. This would require taking river water and mixing it with soil, which is why Masher wanted a location closer to the water. Then, the mud would be put into the wall forms, and the bots would need to get on top of the mud layer and literally stamp it down with their feet until it was highly condensed. Extra water would come out from between the boards, leaving a dense, hard wall behind. Once each layer was done, more boards would be added to the form and the process repeated. This would go on until the walls were all high enough to allow inhabitants to easily walk around inside the buildings. Then, the boards would be removed. Another week or so of drying would result in walls that were almost as strong as concrete, but that would eventually need refreshing due to rains slowly washing the mud away. Sealing the walls would stop the rain problem, but the bots didn't yet have any sealant suitable for this part of the job. The type of sealant needed couldn't be completely waterproof - if the walls became completely dry, they'd lose strength - yet had to allow excess rain to be repelled. For now, it was more likely that the group would just fix damage as needed, at least until they found something to use as a coating. Something natural would surely work - back when the method was invented, synthetics were not yet things - but Masher didn't know where to find a suitable material for that aspect.

"Da roof is da hardest part. It's where da humans had all sorts'a trouble. Ya can use leaves, but dat doesn't last. Straw lasts betta, but it ain't fully rainproof eitha. Wool, if we can find da right animals, is pretty good, but it's biological, so it still rots. I say dat da best way ta do da roofs is outta da boards we use fer da wall frames. Den we can seal da gaps wit' asphalt. Eitha that or use da boards ta support anotha' laya' of stamped soil." Asphalt would be easy enough to get. It came from oil, and would basically require de-tuning one of the Energon stills so it would be left behind as a residue from refining. Normally, asphalt was an unwanted byproduct of a bad still, but in this case, it'd be produced on purpose.

After some skepticism, the group got to work. Getting the trees was easy enough since they had to be cleared out of the area anyway, but making them into boards proved to be more problematic. Instead of saws, the robots only had their blasters and welding torches to cut with. Many trees ended up being split or vaporized before some of the people mastered the skill well enough to create proper planks. Finally, however, a few got it down. Once that was done, the steps were compiled into programmatic format. Rather than pass thumb drives around and risk viruses, the ones who knew what to do just spoke the code into the open. Those listening could then tell that there were no viruses and compile what they heard into operative programs.

Once everyone had the program, the board-making work went from being a project that could have taken days on end into one that took mere minutes. It was almost like watching a living sawmill come online. Everyone became part of a larger process and worked together perfectly until this part of the process was complete. The next step, making the frameworks, went easier. Ironically, this made that part of the work go slower than it could have since no one saw the need to distill a program for it and essentially automate the process.

Masher couldn't help but notice that the Coltanis were far better at being laborers than his IOPC contingent. The lesser bots were used to employment and had nothing against plain old low-level work, while the Decepticons did it through the equivalent of gritted teeth and appeared distracted, most likely by thoughts of how to make someone else do it all.

Some thought the mud-making step was outright fun, but then came the question of how to get all of the mud over to what was now the groundwork for a new village. Discussion began, and finally, Masher ordered that huge wooden troughs be constructed. An engineer figured out how to get the planks to fit well enough to keep the mud in, and soon enough, it was possible to transport great amounts of mud in short order. Being robotic had its privileges, and one of them was the ability to use hydraulic power to handle literally tons of weight. With four bots to each trough, this part of the job wasn't a problem. As a by-product of this work, the ground leading to the river, which was originally quite soft, became compressed to the point that it was now almost a proper road.

The most fun part for everyone was the stamping, and even the most downtrodden-acting Coltani brightened up when he saw that solid walls were indeed being formed by this odd foreign way of doing things. Water gushed out from between the planks of the wall forms as the heavy bots used their legs as high-powered tampers. Eventually, the stamping had to pause because the bots were mashing so much water out of the mud that it threatened to undermine the buildings being made, but it didn't take long to dig a trench to drain it away. Before the night was out, the walls of the new structures were in place, though they still had to dry before the forms could be removed and the roofs could be installed.

As night fell, Masher had no intentions of stopping the work. The Coltanis, however, didn't have the night vision optics that the Decepticons did, and soon ended up bumbling around in the dark. Masher, disgruntled, called a halt to the project. Soon, everyone was sitting around the makeshift refinery area drinking field-still Energon. The Coltanis excitedly discussed the project, its progress, and what the end result would be. Eventually, their excitement spread to the Cybertronians, and their voices filled the night over the sounds of the night's wildlife.

~~~~~~~

Coltan

Fighting here was soon at full steam, and Megatron was proud to see that there were indeed strong bots on the planet - and those who knew how to use wits when raw strength wasn't enough. One day per week, however, the streets became peaceful. That was when the Coltanis had to attend the mandatory Megatronist services, and those found outside of a service and not apparently on the way to one faced being blasted by the Decepticon Forces.

After each service, though, combat resumed with even more intensity. The bots were quite eager to put the lessons of the Decepticon Way into practice against their rivals!

[Vallermoore]

Coltan

All the robot oil and coolant that was shed in vicious blaster battles was serving a proper purpose; it was hardening the Coltani bots, winnowing out the weak, the too-trusting and those who were too unwilling to use their blasters. Since Coltan, unlike Cybertron, had the air needed to allow biologicals to live on their planet, an as yet small slave trade of humans and sapient ponies sprung up. King Coal had only allowed a small number of biological captives to be taken, most destined for his greedy maw, whilst Masher had not had enough time for a slave trade to really take root. Now mines and buildings worked by slaves started to rise, as the number of Coltani raiders, now raiding the right places, steadily grew. The time had not yet arrived when Coltanis would be allowed to visit Cybertron, or indeed could visit Cybertron without being blasted by angry Decepticons who remembered the trouble they had caused, but after a few years, certain Coltanis could and would be allowed to immigrate and become Decepticons. For those who passed the tests, it would not be as painful for them to enter their new bodies.

When it came to the Sunday Services, violence was temporarily banned until they were over, and even enemies could sit in the same pews without fear as the Priests of Megatron explained the true Decepticon Way to the Coltanis, without making the Coltanis feel inferior whilst doing so.

Cybertron
The Dirt Patch

As Brutal fired his left arm weapon, MasterBlaster blasted the shell which blew up halfway between the two. Both MasterBlaster and Brutal raised an arm to protect their faces from any shrapnel. Most of the damage on both sides was taken by the arena screens, which were totally peppered with shrapnel. MasterBlaster got in a bit closer and attempted a Viper Strike on his foe, trying to jet up and blast the motion and mind boards of Brutal. Even if he did manage a direct hit, he doubted his foe could be quickly killed in that way, as such a bot would have powerful armour. This would be his hardest fight since the one against Death, but Death had been running a jammer, trying to kill him outright. Neither bot here hated the other one enough to outright try and kill the other and risk their own life at the same time.

*****
Loyal Star felt very proud to have this special stripe painted on. This was the sort of thing that would impress other bots, being the second highest medal and moreover, one earned as a civilian. Only a Gold Stripe ranked higher, and these were only given for the very highest achievements of all. On his way back home, looking forward to getting his first conscription stint out of the way, so he could become a Priest of Megatron, another bot stopped him with a million Cube offer. "If I were free to talk about it, I'd tell you for a tenth of that sum, but I do not want to anger my God. And besides...Domintel knows all." He took off into the sky, deciding now was a good time to gaze on the Metal Planet and wonder what to do next. Of course his rear cameras were checking in case the other bot was following him.

As he rocketed up into the sky, he thought If my stripe attracts constant negative attention with bots either trying to buy the information from me or hack it from me, maybe I should transfer to another body until my Military Stint begins and call myself something else as a DIY Witsec? And put my other body with the stripe on in my Energon vault until I mind-transfer to it on the day I report for Military duty? Still, maybe that was just a one-off? I don't want to hide under another name if I don't have to, but if I have attracted the attention of something like the ICC, I will have to until I join the Military. Once I'm a serving soldier, even the ICC can't barge into a military base to come after me unless they want serious trouble from General Carjack. And as an ordained Priest of Megatron, I can go to another far away world on missionary duty. If something like that happens again, or if the underworld tries to grab or blast me, I will mind transfer to a spare, call myself something else for now, and consider moving house. He looked at Cybertron in the same way MasterBlaster was fond of doing and wondered if it was just one very curious bot or if he had become a target for bribe attacks, hacking attempts and possibly even outright kill attempts.

Invisius

By the end of the day, both the Coltanis and Cybertronians were excited at the thought of having nice if plain new homes for themselves to live in. Things were looking a bit better for them all. One of the IOPC asked Masher if raiding of other planets was still permitted or if it would give away their hiding place.