An Exploration Mission (Closed; Att'n Vallermoore)

[Victorious Decepticons]

Coltan

As time went on and gangs formed, an uneasy domestic peace started to take hold. Unfortunately, many of the gangs decided that it was better and easier to levy "taxes" on the local population instead of raiding other places. As the practice grew, it put a noticeable drag on the economy, and it didn't take long for Decepticon treasurers to realize that the government wasn't getting the predicted amount of actual tax money in. From the sky, growing pockets of poverty were evident as buildings began to return to rust when their owners couldn't afford the cost of the frequent recoating needed to protect them from the planet's higher moisture levels.

This put Megatron in a bit of a bind. It was against the Speech at the Founding of the Nation to make it illegal to do domestic raiding, yet the Coltani gangs were clearly at a level that was harming the economy of the new territory and causing general poverty to increase. The current status was as if a dog had a thousand ticks instead of just a few. After thinking about it for quite a while, he decided that he would have to spin his way around this. He would use Coltan's "territory" status to make it an exception to the general rule. Megatron wasn't at all pleased by what was going on or what seemed to be necessary, but he didn't want anyone to be able to say that a non-enslaved territory of the Decepticons was a poverty-ridden hellhole, either.

With this in mind, Megatron reluctantly announced that on Coltan, domestic raiding would become illegal until the area was more stabilized. Those caught doing it would be subject to 10 years of slavery. Megatron's next decree was much more pleasing to him, though this one didn't go out over the air. Instead, it was given to Foreign Intelligence. He decreed that the Judge Dreads, which he considered to be made up of pure scum thanks to their prior connections to the legal system, be raided (in the law enforcement sense) for tax evasion. Coltani peasants had been unable to pay because of their domestic activities - but this should have resulted in an increase paid by Judge Dread members. Such an increase had not happened, so ForIntel, backed by the Decepticon Military, was to seize property from them equivalent to the value of the missing tax.

In other news, Megatronist services were moved to Wednesday nights, bringing them in line with the timing of those on Cybertron. "Everyone enjoys an extra day off in the middle of the week, and more importantly, both Saturday and Sunday services are associated with various branches of Yahweh worship. Changing the day will therefore set us apart. This won't matter much on Coltan, but it'll be a good selling point on the planets we don't own yet. On them, people who follow ME will get an extra half-day off, while the followers of Yahweh get stuck going to their churches on the weekend and have to lose some of the time they would rather have spent defragging."

~~~~~~~~~~

To the surprise of the inmates in the last Coltani jail, they were all ordered outside just a few days after the Decepticon takeover. Then, the jailhouse was dismantled and the contaminant-laden Low-Low Standard used for prisoner fuel was taken away to a refinery to be processed into "real Energon." At first, they thought that they would all be freed after all, despite having been put inside for political crimes. Their anticipation was short-lived, though. It turned out that the jail was no longer needed because they were all going to the Slave Market on Earth to be sold to the mines!

"Those of you who don't get bought are clearly worthless," A sadistic Decepticon guard informed them. "So if you don't sell, we'll recycle you as scrap!"

Soon, the inmates were put aboard a flotilla of Military cargo-bots, who took them to the market that was mentioned. They would stand for sale for 10 days, and any who were left over after that would go to the foundries of Earth, where they would be turned into ingots and sent back to Cybertron in that form along with loads of ore. The inmates were unable to make any comments, and made the trip in silent terror.

While many of them wanted to beg for their lives and freedom, only a few had the sense to realize that, as a god, Megatron should be able to detect their prayers. Of them, even fewer could stand the thought of praying to Megatron, their captor and the one who'd ordered their sale, for mercy. However, these few began to do exactly that.

"I was only supposed to serve 10 days," one prayed. "Please don't turn that into a life sentence...or a death sentence! All I did was get overheard saying that Masher wasn't really a god!"

"Please, no, please let me out!" Another mentally begged. "I'm not really a political prisoner at all! Coal had me thrown in by decree after I did work on his palace and he didn't pay. When I tried to get my money, he put me in that jail and threw away the key! I have done nothing wrong, nothing at all!"

Strangely, all of those who prayed - AND had a good excuse for their presence in the prison, one that would not make them any kind of enemy of the Decepticons or the Leader - felt a strange hot sensation on their chests. However, thanks to their control viruses, they couldn't look or even talk about it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Upon their arrival at the Slave Market, the prisoners were surprised to find that out of about 500, 10 were taken off to one side and led behind a rope that said "NOT FOR SALE." All of these had the words "do not sell" written across their chests. The marks were apparently made by some sort of low-powered torch.

"Attention, everyone!" A Megatronist Priest said, walking out from the depths of the sale warehouse. "These 10 bots were the only ones who were smart enough to pray to Divine Leader Megatron for his mercy and who had convincing arguments as to why they should get it. The rest of you, regardless of your specific reason for being in the political prison, did not do that. Therefore, it is decreed that all 490 of you shall be sold off as originally ordered, and that you shall spend the rest of your lives serving real, loyal, and faithful Decepticons."

"As for you 10, your status is now that of appellants to Megatron. Soon, Megatron himself will come here to adjudicate your cases. Know that praying alone, though it is pleasing to the Divine Leader, is not enough to change your originally-decided fates. It did, however, put you on the path to a chance at a better outcome. Megatron will find out your histories and make decisions accordingly. For now, you shall be kept under the control of your added code. This is to make sure you don't fly away on us, and it'll also keep you from making endless pitches for your freedom to those of us who cannot grant it."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

The bot who approached Loyal Star was indeed a member of the ICC, which was already looking for ways to increase its advantage. Other bots would surely come with bribes as well. It was, however, unlikely that any worth their blasters would try to hack the information out of him. This was because if attacked directly like that, Loyal Star would be likely to delete the relevant information from his mind before a virus could stop him.

Hiding under another name would not please his Divine Leader at all, even if the goal was to keep secrets, secret. Witness protection and equivalents were seen as being for cowards, and certainly not for someone who was meant to represent Megatron's divinity!

What Loyal Star didn't know, and that Megatron hadn't mentioned, was that most people who won stripes ended up simply taking them off after the celebration ended and then painting new ones on for festivities. The right to bear the special stripe without government interference, rather than the stripe itself, was the real award. Those who went around with their award and/or rank stripes showing were almost invariably either long-term military members or extremely strong gangsters - people nobody with a sense of self-preservation really wanted to mess with. Alas, this was one of those things that "everybody" knew if they were from Cybertron, so very few would think to mention it. Megatron, of course, would never suggest removing or painting over one of his award stripes even if the thought did cross his mind.

Though none of this was in his SEDP, Loyal Star did find something else when he looked through it for some clues: Those who wanted to enter the Military prior to being officially conscripted for their first stint needed to sign up at the local intake office. There would be no official call until conscription time, so it was up to the would-be soldier to go there on his own. Also, while early sign-on was allowed prior to the first conscription, it wasn't usually possible during subsequent rounds. This way, those eager to get the military training the government believed was necessary could get it ASAP, assuming they were over the minimum age of 4.

~~~~~~~~~

Dirt Patch

Unlike MasterBlaster's prior foes, Brutal didn't stand there like an idiot when he saw MasterBlaster take off. He didn't know what he was up to, but he was sure it wasn't good. Also, in an arena setting, trying to gain altitude required going almost straight up for several feet before any horizontal clearance could be obtained. There wouldn't be time for that this time. Brutal immediately opened fire, blasting MasterBlaster in the wings several times. The would-be leader had no choice but to land again almost immediately.

Now, MasterBlaster appeared to be throwing a near-fatal amount of errors, and he leaned over holding his torso as if he'd been hit in the engine. Brutal started strutting over, clearly thinking that he had the victory and that he'd soon finish the job. The big gangster wondered for a moment why MasterBlaster didn't concede - surely he'd taken so much damage that fighting longer could cause him to die without even transferring his mind away!

When Brutal got close enough to deliver what he thought would be the final blast, MasterBlaster quickly rose up with his blasters blazing. Before the overly-cocky challenger could properly react, he'd been sliced across the motion-boards and was staggering backwards. MasterBlaster's engine area, it turned out, had not been hit at all.

~~~~~~~~~

Invisius

It didn't take long at all to get a basic village up, and the Canis sapiens in the area marveled at the construction of what seemed, in comparison to their own sizes, to be a towering city. Soon, however, the local beings had reason to be displeased with the robotic presence.

As the Energon stills were retuned to produce asphalt and fuel oil, they also began to belch stinky asphalt-smelling smoke into the skies. Then, when the Decepticons ended up with oil fractions that they didn't want, the bots just dumped the deadly goo on the ground outside of the village. Soon, the rains washed that into the rivers, and those downstream, especially the ones close to the source of the mess, began to get ill.

The Decepticons didn't think much of the strange new wildlife sounds that happened at night near the refinery section. Instead, their minds were on the next project: The construction of a primitive foundry that they'd use to turn the nearby iron ore into pure iron. After that, another foundry would be made to mix that with carbon to make steel. "While dat's goin' on," Masher was saying, "we IOPC's gonna be lookin' fer a copper deposit. An' some silicon, or quartz ta turn inta silicon. Den~~"

His words were suddenly cut off with the sound and feeling of a colossal explosion that rocked the ground. None of the IOPC even had to wonder what it was. A still had blown up! As they raced toward the refinery zone, grabbing soil as they went so they'd have something to throw on the flames, a series of explosions went off. By the time they arrived, half of the stills were exploded, useless hulks. Masher immediately noticed that they weren't the main Energon stills, but the ones that were being used to make non-Energon petroleum products.

From way out in the woods, a voice yelled out, "No pu-pu in ground! No pu-pu in water!!" All around them, other voices yelled out "NO PU-PU!" in a shrieking, hyena-like way. By the time the IOPC bots could get their heat-sensing detectors booted up, there was a rush of leaves, and the creatures were gone.

After several minutes spent futilly trying to find the saboteurs, the Decepticons examined the remains of the stills. Canine teeth marks were clearly present on the copper tubing, and not only that, the tubes had been rerouted so the "pu-pu" went right into the burners responsible for heating the devices. The job had been done crudely, but the result was just as inevitable.

"So that's what those sounds were. Damn dog-things gnawing on our stills!" One of the Decepticons said, holding his blaster at the ready and with glowering eyes.

"What's pu-pu?" A Coltani said, wandering up.

"Huh?" Masher turned toward him. "Oh, dat's gotta be da effluent we been dumpin'. Biologicals always t'ink petroleum stinks, especially da low-grade junk like asphalt. I didn't t'ink it'd really be a problem, but it seems our cohabitants t'ink different. I gotta say, I'm surprised dey realized da stuff can blow up."

Everyone was ready to create an extinction event and "take care of" the problem that way, but to their shock, Masher vetoed the idea. "We be chasin' shadows ta try ta get dem outta all dese woods. It only takes one 'a dem ta really chew yer crap up. Da most profitable solution is da least satisfyin' one in dis case." He was very clearly not satisfied himself, but now that he wasn't trying to command a few million non-gangsters, his business mind was running on all bytes. "We will make a pit to contain da 'pu-pu' and den refine it up ta Energon grade afta we get a real refina'ry goin." The expression on his face was almost like that of a pouty kid, but he also didn't want his other stills to be blown up the second someone turned their back on them.

Then, one of the IOPC bots said, "I think we should set up something 'special' for them..."

"Right now we ain't got da tech ta do anytin' special enough," Masher said. "But once we do, we'll take dis joint from da wildlife like da humans swarmed ova' da Earth, and den we'll use dem dog-boys as our pets!"

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

Loyal Star realized that someone would know what to do, and this bot was a friend. Decepticon friends, at least for adult bots over the age of 4, were rarer then human ones, and much, much rarer then pony ones, but they were also normally much better. Fire Eater, the bot who had known him since he was a pony, the bot who had patiently shown him the true Megatronist Way when he was ignorant of it; he would know what to do. He radioed him and said "I gained a Silver Stripe for my actions when Coltan tried to raid Cybertron-what I earned it for is classified, sadly, but if you knew what it was, it would certainly make you pleased with me. However, it is attracting lots of attention, at the moment in the form of bribe attempts. Going into hiding when not a Forintel agent on duty is hardly a very Megatronist thing to do, but in this case, fighting is suicide since major Cybertronian gangs, the sort even Decepticons have to be wary of, are interested. And giving away the secret or selling it is treason. What would you do in my situation?" Although a Decepticon now, he still considered himself to be an acolyte of Fire Eater until he was ordained. Fire Eater had never given him the wrong information yet and would surely help him in this situation.
*****
Dirt Patch

Realizing that his normal moves were not going to work, and that he had a fair chance of losing a body and his chance to lead this gang, MasterBlaster decided to pretend that he was much more wounded then he was. After all, Brutal was very overconfident and perhaps he could use this to his advantage. Clutching his chest as if he had been hit in the engine, he almost fell to the ground. As Brutal came over to finish him off, MasterBlaster blasted him across the motion-boards, his eyes now glowing the clear red of a connive. Getting as close as he dared, he blasted with his full power across his foe's mind boards, hoping to slice them in two as well and *kill* his foe. If successful, the defeat of Brutal would put him in prime position to become the new gang leader-but only successful raids would keep him there. Failure would get him kicked out very quickly.

*****
Coltan

As things settled down on Coltan, it had become like Sicily on Earth used to be-almost every business was paying large amounts of protection money to avoid being turned into scrap. On Cybertron, whilst robberies and the like were common, protection rackets aimed at fellow Decepticons were looked down on as Autobot-like-and normally resulted in the mobsters getting ambushed and blasted, lynched by local business-bots or slyly poisoned with silica Cubes. Most gangs on Coltan were extortionists but none more so then the Judge Dreads, who in fact hardly did any raiding of other planets at all. This was making it near impossible for the Decepticon tax authorities to get their war reparations out of Coltan, as many bots barely had enough to live on. Megatron thought things over for a long while and decided that at least for now, Coltan would never improve and could never pay taxes properly if the domestic raiding was not stopped. Other forms of violence were fine, but until things properly improved, there was to be no more domestic raiding.

Judge This, the head of the Judge Dreads, a red and white bot with black blasters and a purple head, laughed out loud when we watched Megatron's decree on the holovision. "How does he think he can enforce any decrees without police to do that?" A few days later he found out when Domintel, backed up by the Decepticon Military, arrested him and twenty other bots, blasted quite a few more for resisting arrest, killing them outright, and he found himself humiliatingly forcibly hacked and starting a ten year sentence with others in the gang doing mining work. In this case, the sentences were publically announced to warn other Coltanis that the decree against protection rackets could be enforced. As a result, it rapidly stopped, and the gangs went west and raided other places and brought their Energon in that way. With the pressure taken off them, the business-bots could now prosper, and they were almost happy to pay their taxes in exchange for the security they now had. Once more the rust vanished from the shops, and the tax Energon started flowing in again.

When Forintel with Decepticon Military backing raided most of the vaults of the Judge Dreads, one of them who was not blasted or forcibly hacked asked why they were being picked on.

"Because before you started to obey our Way, you were judges and magistrates over your fellow bots who in most cases were just following the Decepticon Way. How much more un-Decepticon can you get then that? Then you extorted so much from the business bots and the lower classes that they could not pay their war reparations to us. Look on this less as a raid and more of some much needed tax collection."

*****
Amongst the political prisoners who had been jailed for selling Coltani secrets, treason and other such things, were ten who both knew that they needed to pray to Megatron and might indeed have been wrongly convicted. One had found a traitor who was on the verge of assassinating King Coal with his jammer on, and had killed the traitor instead. On Cybertron he would have been rewarded if he had saved the pre-immortal Megatron from assassination but here King Coal had refused to believe his story and had him jailed for life in the political prison. Another had been sent there for ten days for doubting Masher's divinity and Megatron was both no friend of Masher and knew Masher was a false god. There was one there for trying to spread Megatronism in King Coal's time. Another was there because he had done some work on the Royal Palace and had asked to be paid for it. A fifth had been a royal advisor who suggested politely that Coltan ally itself with the Decepticons and that his King should return to his popular policies of old.

A sixth bot had embezzled royal funds-technically a criminal rather then a political matter. Another was there for politely turning down his King's offer to eat some sapient ponies alive, as he just didn't find them tasty. The next one had been framed on a treason charge by other courtiers. The ninth was a Coder who had been ordered to melt down his one and a half years old offspring alive after the offspring had accidently kicked a rubber ball through a palace window, and had refused. The last bot was there because the King just wanted his Energon. All of these had at least a chance of winning freedom.

*****
Invisius

When their stills were blown up, the angry bots went looking for the saboteurs for a bit, and were ready to blast every biological in the area, but Masher banned it at least for now, as it would take too much time. For now a pit was made until the bots were ready to deal violently with the local wildlife.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron

Fire Eater immediately congratulated Loyal Star on his quick rise in favor with Divine Leader Megatron. However, he was shocked when he heard that Loyal Star thought it was a problem that people were trying to bribe the information out of him.

"You're a Decepticon! This shouldn't be any trouble for you!" Fire Eater chided. "I'd think up some legit-sounding oil sludge and sell them that. Usually, the best fake information is something that sounds like it's probably the truth, but won't actually work when they try to use it. For example, if someone paid me a hundred thousand Cubes for my raider's map, I'd actually give them a map. Just not the real one."

"Of course, that'll make it so you could never deal with the ICC again, and that might not be a good thing. It's usually much better to be on friendly terms with the leading syndicate. They can get rid of a lot of problems for you."

"This'll probably be more helpful: You don't have to keep your stripe on all the time. There are thousands of people who have earned awards like that, but you don't see 'em walking around everywhere. That's because they usually only wear their stripes for special occasions. The most common time you see someone wearing theirs is if there's some kind of ceremony or they think they can use their credential to help 'em sell stuff. That and if they're looking for a fight. If someone with military honors feels like fighting, he may put his stripe on and go strut down the street in a rough area on purpose. Someone will usually come out to brawl, for better or worse. But don't worry about people mistaking you for a fight-seeker. Combat stripes are fancier, usually done as waves or lightning bolts, while peaceful civilian ones are plain lines."

"Anyway, what I'm saying is that it's legal to just remove your stripe. You have the privilege of painting one back on at any time, as long as the replacement is an accurate representation of the award you earned. Then you can put it back on for special occasions, but leave it off for day-to-day life so you aren't constantly bothered by nosy people. But I'd still sell the ICC some rot because they have money. You might not want to do that if you want to deal with them later, though."

"How can a stripe make it easier to sell things you'd actually want to sell?" Loyal Star asked.

"That's something that works best for the winners of the annual Engineering Competition," Fire Eater explained. "Top winners who develop a workable - and useful - new modification or substantially improve an existing process are eligible for honors stripes. You have to have something really outstanding to get a stripe, even if you win. And, it has to be the sort of thing our Divine Leader wants to encourage people to make."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Dirt Patch

The crowd went wild as MasterBlaster delivered his blasts to his opponent's motion boards, and then went wilder yet when they saw him go in for the finish. Brutal saw it coming too, and tried to put through the command to blast MasterBlaster at full power, but he couldn't respond nearly fast enough with his motion boards out of commission. He did fire, but the blast went off early and missed, while MasterBlaster's finishing move was right on target. Soon, he was on his way to his spare as data packets while his fighting body thudded to the sand, deactivated.

Arena personnel came out with the intention of "clearing the field" - by taking that dead metal as their own - but the rest of the gang quickly arrived and let them know that there would be no 3,500-Cube bonus for the company today. After taking the body themselves and putting it off to the side, the next challenger stepped forward.

"Buzz." He identified himself curtly. His tiny body was clearly that of a scout, though it was likely that he also had a bigger one.

Soon, the arena announcer called "FIGHT!" Immediately afterward, MasterBlaster felt the oddest vibrating sensation he'd ever experienced. In fact, he realized, it could indeed be best described as a buzz. This, however, was no mere annoying noise. MasterBlaster's metal began to resonate, and soon, he felt pain along all of his welds. It wasn't long before his sensors were registering the maximum possible level - the 30% he had set before beginning these challenges. If he didn't do something soon, it seemed, every weld in his body would split, causing his housing and his inner framework to simply fall apart. Meanwhile, Buzz stood there smugly with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Invisius

Work here progressed at a steady clip. Masher used his blasters to cut his glider-trailer apart and fashioned its hardened steel into shovels. This allowed crude mining to begin; the planet's metal ores had never been tapped, so the surface deposits were still there. Some scouts flew around and found what appeared to be copper ore; once that was dug up and refined, it'd be easy to make wiring, board traces, and other essential parts.

After plenty of ore had been dug and piled up near the village, Masher ordered this sort of work to stop. "We's gotta build a giant wall," he announced. "Refinin' metal is a stinky process, an' it takes some highfalutin' tech ta contain da byproducts. We ain't got dat yet. So we's gotta wall out dem natives. And we's gotta make dat wall so dat anyone who tries climbin' it gets his paws shredded. Here's what we gonna do. We set up da framework like we did for our pads, only every 1/2 inch or so, we gonna put a hole in da frame. An' den we's gonna put a nice, sharpened little blade in each hole. And DEN we stamp it down. Oh, and one otta' t'ing: We's gonna build it down as well as up. Half our height down into the ground, and one-and-a-half times our height up. Wit' knives on all outside, top, and bottom surfaces. Dogs can dig. But dey ain't diggin' unda dis." Masher said with determination.

He paused and looked around with a glower. "An' den we's gonna refine dat ore, an' make our sealants, and show dese mooks here what 'pu-pu' really is."

The dog-people knew that something bad was coming up when a huge wall began to go up. They quickly made plans to attack the village during the night and chew up everything that looked like it wouldn't bite back, but to their surprise, Masher was one step ahead of them. Instead of having everyone stop when the Coltani's visual circuits were rendered nearly useless by the dark, he kept the Cybertronian contingent stamping away. Guards were also posted all along the perimeter. Finally, huge bonfires, made with the smaller tree limbs left over from making new construction molds, kept light shining on all of the important areas.

By the time the next day came, the village had been turned into an impregnable compound. The planet's creatures could only listen the massive crackle of burning logs roared out from behind the solid walls. Inside, huge clay furnaces had been made, and soon, ore was being shoveled in by the ton. Before long, noxious, toxic fumes rolled up from the compound in huge black plumes.

The dog-men looked for a gate to sneak through, or perhaps chew through, but they were dismayed to learn that the entire wall had been built with no openings at all. When some tried to dig under, they came back from their tunnels with devastated, bloody paws thanks to Masher's idea of putting knife blades on the underground part as well as the exposed surface. The Decepticons, on the other hand, had no trouble with the walls at all. They simply flew over them whenever they needed to get in or out.

Despite having the raw capability of refining metal, and the improved security needed to keep the operations safe, it'd be a long time before they could get it to a form compatible with Cybertronian and Coltani machinery and bodies. For now, any metal would have to be wrought, like wrought iron, with heat and hammers. However, unlike a truly new civilization just starting out, they knew all of the advancement steps that led from crude ironmaking all the way to full modern technology. This made it so for them, the work of initial discovery was not needed. Advancement would be much, much quicker because of this.

As this went on, several bots had asked Masher about raiding from Invisius.

"Don't do any raidin' or even leave da planet yet!" Masher said, with some concern in his voice. "Da whole point a' bein' here is dat nobody knows we's here! Not only dat, but any good space fleet that makes it t'rough da rocks can wipe us out. ALL operations gotta stay terrestrial until d'ere's a LOT more a' us. Plus...dat big white-painted blowhard surely ain't satisfied ta let us alone as it is. If he t'inks we's gonna build 100 billion bots, he'll blast his way t'rough dat field an' attack fer sure!" Masher, of course, didn't realize that Megatron already knew exactly where he was.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Earth - Slave Market

Buyers for the new slaves trickled in slowly - many mines already had bought Coltanis after the refugee group came through and didn't have room for more in their current budgets. Still, some did get picked up, and they could at least rest assured that they wouldn't be melted down as if they were mere lifeless scrap.

Eventually, one buyer did arrive and buy 100 of them all at once. He took the ones in the worst shape, and to the slaves, it seemed as though he must be very benevolent to "save" the ones who - while not junk heaps - clearly weren't the top-of-the-line out of the selection. "Are you sure you don't want them all, Overseer?" The salesbot said as he activated the ownership-transfer script.

"I don't need to be waitin' forever to get full productivity out of my stock," Overseer said in response. "These'll be ready for conversion within just a few months. Of course, if you decide to scrap the rest, you know that I'll always match a foundry's price."

The purchased ones followed along according to their scripts, but inside, they had high hopes. Surely this "Overseer" would be a savior to them! After all, he said he'd convert them. That had to mean that they'd get far better bodies~! In a way, their thoughts were correct. They would get far better bodies - by Overseer's definition, anyway...

Meanwhile, the 10 who had been set aside waited for a full day without any further contact other than to have a Cube of Low Standard each delivered to them. The Low Standard, while clearly not the best fuel, was notably better than the Low-Low Standard Coltan's prison had given them. They were wondering if they'd been forgotten when they heard the sound of a perfectly-running set of foot jets over the roof, followed by the solid thunk of excellent construction when the owner of those jets landed outside. Solid footsteps were heard through the wall as the person walked toward the back of the giant warehouse.

A few minutes later, all who were still present were awed to see the slightly-glowing body of the Leader of the Decepticons. He strode majestically past the stalls of human livestock, seeming not to take notice of the lowly beings as those from the Cloning Centers stared up at him in awe and the wild ones shrank back in fear. He also ignored the unfaithful Coltanis - they hadn't acknowledged him, and now, the response was mutual. Soon enough, he arrived at the big cage with the Coltanis who had prayed to him.

"Out of this entire batch, you 10 were the only ones with the sense to appeal to me. In accordance with the standard system of the Decepticons, I shall now adjudicate your appeals. Usually, appellants are brought to me, but in this case, I think it's better to do it the other way around. That way, if any of your appeals are denied, I won't have to have a cargo-bot bring you all the way back here."

Megatron turned to one of the bots and waved his hand. Instantly, the enslavement virus' muting effect was turned off. He would do the same with each bot when it was time to hear that bot's appeals, rather than unmuting them all at once. Megatron didn't want to have them all clamoring to be heard at the same time.

To Megatron's shock, all of them had stories that he was sympathetic to. He used his divine power to verify all of the stories, this time using Carjack's style of remote viewing so as to not give away the secret of the crystal - and to make the process seem as mysterious as possible. It wouldn't seem very divine, he figured, if he just whipped out a tool. That crystal would be used only alone or in the presence of his most trusted confidantes.

Once this was done, Megatron began to make his comments to each of the bots before ordering that they be released back to Coltan.

He paused at the embezzler's recounting, and made sure to inform him that if Coltan was part of the Decepticon Empire at the time, he would have risked being blasted by Megatron's elite guards if he had hit his vaults, by an Asset Protection Force if he went after the treasury of one of Megatron's companies, or, if he'd gone after actual government funds, back-raided by the government.

For the one Masher had jailed for "blasphemy," Megatron had a large smile. "You were right - Masher is NOT a god. He runs a copy of the mortal aspect of my system, but has failed completely at becoming an actual divinity. This is one of the reasons he made the horrible miscalculation that he did. That said, I will warn that the punishment for blasphemy against me is far more severe. Make sure to learn about the Temple of Lost Souls if you ever get the urge to run your voice chip against me or my religion."

Megatron then expressed sympathy for the Coder, and to the surprise of the Coltanis, said that King Coal was an idiot for having breakable windows in his palace and for letting any randoms get close enough to kick a ball through them in any case. "I can't imagine how he lived so long with such awful security!" Megatron blurted, oblivious to how cold and calculating that sounded. "The windows of a leader's residence should be immune to even the most powerful blaster fire, and there should be a security zone around the place that's too big to kick a ball through on top of that!" Megatron shook his head for a moment. "But that's all irrelevant now. I can only offer my condolences, and my promise that such a situation won't even be able to happen anymore."

Megatron wondered if, at just 1 1/2 years old, the Coder's offspring had even been sapient at the time. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be able to fathom why the older bot didn't just obey the order. He made a mental note to ask some other Coltani about this later on, figuring that asking the Coder himself would result in him getting a useless emotion-based response and open old wounds at the same time. It would be far better to ask an uninvolved party in a different place.

As for the others, it didn't take long for Megatron to declare them pardoned or wrongfully held, depending on the causes of their convictions. "I also want to make it clear that your good fortune today is the result of your acceptance of me not only as the winner of a war, but as your Divine Leader," Megatron said. He waved his hand, and instantly, all traces of their enslavement viruses were erased. "Be sure you stop at Debugging too," he said as he beckoned a soldier over. "Being stuck under an enslavement virus for a prolonged period of time always causes serious glitches. Get those fixed. That is my first order to you."

The soldier then led them to a military cargo-bot. This bot would take them all back to Coltan, where they would be free. It would, however, be up to them to figure out how to get money if they didn't have some in a vault somewhere already. Decepticons were quite unused to the idea of not just going and raiding some, so the idea that they'd need more than a free Cube of Standard upon release hadn't come to mind.

[Vallermoore]

Invisius

None of the bots, either Coltani or Decepticons, were going to disobey Masher on an important order like that. None wished to feel his wrath or the sting of his blasters just before it cut their bodies apart. And even less did they want to provoke Megatron into coming with the Decepticon Military and wiping out their little colony. The dog-men tried and tried to get into their walled off enclave once the walls went up, but it just got their paws cut and after a few of them had been blasted as well, the rest decided reluctantly to flee the area and it's giant metal beings. The Coltani bots in particular did not mind the conditions and the hard work, and not being allowed to raid other planets. It was no worse then what they had been used to under King Coal, and they had real faith in Masher. He had helped them throw their evil, lazy monarch into a furnace. He had made their planet great, until Megatron had taken it over. He had protected them from the wrath of Megatron. They were the most loyal of the loyal. The IOPC bots knew better then to sound off their voice chips about the lack of raiding, and knew things would get better in time anyway.

*****
Earth - Slave Market

Those who were brought by Overseer soon found out that the conversion he had for them involved being made into zombies, having their filters taken out, and sent to work digging ore until they *died* only to be trapped within their dead metal, labouring eternally without even any low standard Energon as they no longer needed it. Most of the bots who were brought by other bots were sent to labour in mines far from Cybertron, or do other such heavy work, but a few would have a slightly better life as house slaves for the richest bots. The job of one bot was to be a *friend* for his not yet fully sapient offspring, whilst also tidying up the mess the offspring caused and serving as the offspring's bodyguard. Having to act like one was Coded only two and a half years ago a lot of the time was annoying when one could do and say nothing about it, but it was much better then the normal work that slaves did.

About thirty unlucky Coltani bots were not brought at all.

*****
The ten bots who were waiting found their Low Standard Energon tasted much better then the prison Energon, which was even worse. When Megatron showed up, everyone was awed at the Perfect Decepticon dropping in, even those who could not show it.
He was surprised that all ten of them were indeed either totally innocent of anything at all, or not guilty of anything that was a crime from a Decepticon point of view. When he had bots executed for treason, he never made the bot's Coder do the execution. That would just guarantee another possible traitor later on, which was something he could do without. It was not the Coder's fault if King Coal had not bothered to have any proper security around his palace, and had windows of glass in it. Even the embezzler was set free; he was just practising the Decepticon Way, and against a ruler Megatron disliked the more he heard of him. If King Coal was trying to rule Cybertron, either one of the High Generals would have quickly disposed of him, or the Decepticon Nation itself would have very violently removed him. He did warn if of the consequences of doing that to the Decepticon government though. Once the bots were freed and had been debugged, they would be some of the most loyal to Megatron Coltanis there were.

***
Cybertron

"I think I'll paint over the stripe after fixing it in my mind boards so I don't accidently repaint the wrong kind of stripe later on. I want to be able to buy things at the shops of the ICC and I can't do that if I connive them. Thank you for your help. Without you, I would still be a sapient pony unicorn instead of the best life form in the whole universe."

After getting home and painting over his stripe, he decided to spend a day or two in Vallermoore in an android pony body just to see his family. He brought a small spacecraft and an android pony body that looked like his own, painted his old cutie mark on it (since he was undercover he didn't have to show his Decepticon Seals) and said quietly in his house, but loud enough for Domintel's bugs to hear it "I'm going to spend a day or two in Vallermoore with my old family. Then I will return, I promise. I will cloak my craft just to leave Cybertron safely and return safely." Some dictatorships stopped their people traveling abroad at all, but to do that here would just badly damage Cybertron's economy. An FNG in Forintel was sent to watch Loyal Star just in case he was some lousy defector. But in fact they need not have worried.

Loyal Star would get a nasty shock when he met his parents though; because they saw him as a traitor to Ponyism and to ponies in general. They had seen glimpses of him on Vallermooreian TV serving Fire Eater, and they detested Decepticons because of what they had done to Equestria. So when they opened the door to him, he was not going to get hugs and kisses and a nice time with them. He didn't know that as his mother opened the door to him with his father standing nearby, both with the religious cutie marks of Ponyist priests. He didn't know his father had recently lost his job because of the Megatronist shift on Vallermoore.

"Mother, Father, how are you?"

*****
The Dirt Patch

The crowd cheered at this; arena fights were great fun for most Decepticons. The next bot had quite plain brown paint and a scout body. "Buzz."

"FIGHT!"

If MasterBlaster had not set maximum pain levels, he would have been in too much agony to do anything. As it was, he knew strong as they were his welds would bust if he did not act quickly. He blasted with full power with an unusual solid blast, and swept the arena with it at chest height. Unless Buzz could get over it or under it, it would hit him. Hopefully if nothing else, this would stop Buzz from shaking MasterBlaster into a pile of parts.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Earth - Slave Market

The 30 bots who weren't bought were soon taken by two grim-looking guards from the slave market. Then, they were marched 30 miles across metal-paved roads to a big installation featuring a giant round building. The sounds of a metal stamping facility came from a smaller building on the right, while on the left, a clinking was heard that was somehow heavy despite the hollow ringing sounds. This building was marked "Casting."

Without a word, the 30 were taken into the main building. There, a massive, bubbling smelting pit - round like the building that housed it - was sunk into the floor. The red-hot mixed metal was quite far from the pit's rim; this ensured that splashing metal wouldn't fly up and hit those standing outside of it. The captives were marched right up to the side, and their fans immediately spun up to try to eliminate the superheated air from their insides.

"Yer probably thinking this is a vicious fate," The foundrybot said as he and about 10 other thuggish-looking foundry workers came over. "But I'll leave ya with this: That Overseer guy would have turned you all into zombies and then made you work until you fell apart. The Market is actually giving you a merciful end, sending you here instead of there." With that, he gave his employees a gesture. They went up behind the captives, and one after another, pushed the 'redundant stock' into the molten metal below. In no more than five minutes, all of the unsold slaves were deactivated and partially melted. The pit's stirrer slowly mixed their metal with the rest of it, while the addition of the new mass forced already-melted metal out of a chute in the pit's side and into a materials separator in a building out back.

This was just one instance of slave deactivation on this day. The facility, conveniently located in workable proximity to three other mines as well as the Slave Market, had a steady - though not overly busy - stream of decommissioned slaves to process. After a few minutes, another slave was brought in. He was severely dented and had one cracked eye panel - obviously damage from a brutal beating - and a barely-running, misfiring engine. The foundrybot didn't even pause as he used the side of his arm to dismissively push him into the pit. With the other arm, he waved the Market guards over to the payment area, where they picked up 10,000 Cubes for their delivery. As before, Coltani bots weren't heavy enough to be worth the usual recycling payment. The cart that carried their payment was conspicuously marked "Megatron Metals."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Coltan

Word of Megatron's actions at the Slave Market spread across the planet as the 10 returnees told their stories. However, these stories also included the fact that unsold bots had been taken to a foundry. Therefore, while some were impressed by the Divine Leader's benevolence and mercy, others were horrified at his callous disposal of the unsold ones.

Megatronist Priests, not expecting to suddenly have to take on the job of the Bureau of Propaganda, each had their own explanations for this disparity. Not long after, however, a unified message was handed down from Cybertron: Megatron is benevolent to his loyalists, and merciless toward those who do not fit that description. Disloyal and unfaithful beings were not people, but things, and things were only kept if they were of direct use to the Decepticon Empire.

This revelation chilled many Coltanis, who were used to being valued just for being sapient. As Megatron had expected, however, some responded to this by becoming fanatically loyal, if only out of fear. Of course, those on the other end of the spectrum secretly responded differently: by wanting revolution. By now, though, DomIntel and ForIntel were both heavily present, and anyone who so much as whispered a word of revolution-minded thinking soon found his body deactivated and his soul - having been claimed in the name of Megatron - at the Temple of Lost Souls. The end result was that everyone had to at least pretend to be a complete loyalist. With no examples of disloyal thought to model, newly-Coded Coltanis would be very likely to believe that what they saw was indeed the correct way of thinking.

So far, there were no such things as newly-Coded Coltanis. Megatron would make sure that the proper illusion of total loyalty, on a level that the North Korea of another timeline could only dream of, was totally in place before releasing the design spec everyone was officially waiting for. Within a generation or two, he believed, he could ensure that all but the rarest few would be raised as fanatical Megatronists and Decepticons-in-Spirit from the time of first activation.

~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore

Loyal Star brighted when his mother opened the door, but that brightness was soon quashed.

"YOU!" His father yelled. "You blasphemer! You traitor! How dare you show your worthless hide here after all you have done?! After you've spat on the Holy Memories of our alicorns and joined our mortal enemies who destroyed Equestria?! Get out of here, never pollute our land with your evil presence again!"

His mother was no more gentle. "You have betrayed us, put us out of the Temple and our positions, and brought unspeakable shame to our family! Can you imagine what I was thinking, watching you on the Interplanetary Channel as you were...were decorated by that HEATHEN SCUM?! Realizing that you have even taken on the body of our worst enemies - meaning that, that means you are truly ONE OF THEM?" She screeched. "Never show your face here again! WE DISOWN YOU! You won't get one feed bag's worth of inheritance!"

With that, the door slammed in Loyal Star's face.

A DomIntel agent, walking around in a housecat-shaped body, listened and observed from the edge of the driveway using telephoto optics. Despite his best efforts at self control, his little engine revved with anger. How he wished he could quickly switch into his real body and step on both of those insolent pony fools!

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron - The Dirt Patch

Buzz quickly ducked, but since the blast was wide-angle, he still got hit. For just a moment, this diverted cycles from his buzz-producing modification, allowing its power level to drop. Then, since the energy was still coming at him, he had to switch tactics and fly over its active range. Once he was up there, he decided to try coming down either on MasterBlaster's head or his back. If Buzz succeeded at that, MasterBlaster would be deactivated almost instantly.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Invisius

Here, work went on at an even faster pace once the dog-men gave up on the immediate area. The first metal planks were hammered out and attached to the walls of the original buildings. "Now dis place is startin' ta look RIGHT!" Masher said with approval, despite the clear differences in construction style. Most notably, the metal wasn't smooth, and it was made of copper instead of steel. "Coppa turns green, but it takes foreva' ta really corrode away," he said, acknowledging that nice, shiny steel would look far better and be even more home-like.

Soon enough, the tools they had made were used to make even better tools, and the first technological iteration was complete. Meanwhile, scouts found several other types of ore, and this allowed better alloys to be created. Soon, equipment was made that would produce even better components, and these went into even better equipment.

As all of this went on, the Decepticons and the Coltanis got to know each other better and the village started to become a cohesive group that, while mostly Decepticon in culture thanks to the Cybertronians' strong, brash personalities, was still unique. Decepticons, always eager to lower (or better yet, eliminate) the need for work, continually came up with new and more efficient ways for getting things done. The Coltanis, on the other hand, were more easygoing about having to do labor but were quite glad to use the new methods that allowed them to do less of it. Unlike certain Earthian cultures, though, they didn't fill up the freed-up time with more work. They were quite content to sit around the fires and play cards once it wasn't light enough to see to do anything major.

Overall, the village was busy, but calm and peaceful. If it was a human settlement, it would have been an agrarian one, where the people worked in the fields all day and then relaxed during the night. Masher, however, dreamed of the day that this would be a cosmopolitan capital city that never closed.

[Vallermoore]

Earth - Slave Market

Walking for thirty miles was no real problem for a Coltani bot, but when they saw the building marked Casting they knew it was not because they were going to be made to preform in a play. Inwardly they were terrified, but amongst some there was relief. Relief that at least they would get a quick death instead of an eternity of slavery. Of course, they were unable to express themselves. Their fans were able to spin up however in the intense heat. "Yer probably thinking this is a vicious fate. But I'll leave ya with this: That Overseer guy would have turned you all into zombies and then made you work until you fell apart. The Market is actually giving you a merciful end, sending you here instead of there." When they were pushed in, they would eventually be made into Decepticon Steel and would end up as parts of new Decepticons, without of course remembering who they used to be. Coltanis, like most Decepticons before Megatron became a god, were normally atheists.

******
Coltan

Since the ten returnees were free to spread their stories, many Coltanis heard about it, with mixed results. Some became genuine loyalists, thinking it showed Megatron would not deliberately enslave or kill a loyalist. Some became loyalists out of fear. Some decided to try and stir up revolution again on Coltan, only to find that Forintel and Domintel were both far better at their jobs then the Secret Sheriffs had been, and far more deadly. After a couple of hundred bots ended up publically dropped alive into foundry pits for even speaking in private against the government, along with two who tried to Code before it was legally ok to do so, the rest learned their lesson.

Vallermoore

Of course Loyal Star had not the slightest intention of defecting or even of spending more then two days or so on Vallermoore. He just wanted a short time of life as a pony where he could drop his guard and relax for a little, before going back to Cybertron and starting his Military Training and his first enlistment. But he would not get that nice sweet time with his parents that he was looking forward to, as his award ceremony had been publically broadcast not just to Cybertron, but to all kinds of planets as well, and his parents had watched it. They both had deep scowls on their faces. His father spoke first. "YOU! You blasphemer! You traitor! How dare you show your worthless hide here after all you have done?! After you've spat on the Holy Memories of our alicorns and joined our mortal enemies who destroyed Equestria?! Get out of here, never pollute our land with your evil presence again!"

Loyal Star had an urge to blast his parents, but restrained himself. He was alive because of them after all, and they had always been nice to him before now. All the same, being called a traitor and a blasphemer hurt emotionally. Being called a traitor on Cybertron was one of the worst insults possible and would at least lead to a fight to the body.
His mother said "You have betrayed us, put us out of the Temple and our positions, and brought unspeakable shame to our family! Can you imagine what I was thinking, watching you on the Interplanetary Channel as you were...were decorated by that HEATHEN SCUM?! Realizing that you have even taken on the body of our worst enemies - meaning that, that means you are truly ONE OF THEM! Never show your face here again! WE DISOWN YOU! You won't get one feed bag's worth of inheritance!" And they slammed the door, clearly thinking of him as an abomination in pony shape.

"I'll be alive when you are bones," he said, before leaving never to return there. There was one place he wanted to go before he went back to Cybertron and he radioed Fire Eater. "I am in an android pony body. I will come over for a little chat after the day's service is over before going back to Cybertron and my main body."

Unknown to him, the FNG agent that was assigned the dull job of following a clear loyalist around just in case he defected, was furious, but not with him, but with his parents. How could they be so horrible to one who chose the supreme form of life in the universe? He wished he was in his proper body so he could jump on both those ponies and splat them, his small quiet engine revving angrily.

After he knew the service was over Loyal Star visited his mentor, Fire Eater, who he had a great deal of respect for. "I feel stupid right now. I went into this android pony body to spend two days with my parents before going back to Cybertron and soon into the Military. But they found out that I was a bot-and called me a traitor and a...a blasphemer.
Well, I suppose when it comes to Ponyism, they are right, but I have nothing to be sorry about. I am the best form of life in the universe, following the best leader and the best god in the universe, who one day will conquer it all. If I am still alive when Vallermoore is one day invaded, I won't be busting any parts trying to save my parents from death or lifetime slavery, that's for sure. Yet, it hurts to have one's own parents reject one, almost like a blast to a mind board. After all the trouble I took to see them and they kicked me to the curb like I was rusty rubbish."

*****

Cybertron - The Dirt Patch

The wound on Buzz was small but it did at least make him stop trying to shake MasterBlaster to bits. As he tried to land on MasterBlaster, MasterBlaster tried to both dodge him and blast Buzz at close range and cut through his armour. Although he was in pain from his wounds, and in danger of losing a body, he loved this wild combat according to the Decepticon Way. If he did manage to beat Buzz and win this fight, he would have a problem with the next battle. His Bravery Up chip had been shaken loose and would not last that much longer and his natural bravery that he had when he was Auric would soon be put to the test.

Invisius

Although the two types of bot, Decepticon and Coltani, were different, there were no racial problems and no bot tried to blast or enslave another bot. They were all Masher loyalists, they had important jobs to do, and they were united against their foes on the outside. If any Decepticons did think negatively of the Coltanis, they kept their voice chips off. Masher would not be pleased with racial disharmony. For their part, the Coltanis showed the Decepticons great respect. Both would tell stories of raids and other things at times in between card games. Red Diamond made his fellow bots laugh by imitating King Coal. "I'M HUNGRY-bring me more ponies!" and telling stories of how stupid the said King was. One Coltani said one evening to Masher "One day this will be the centre of a great capital city and an Empire of our own, hopefully where both Decepticons and Coltanis are Coded and serve in the Military together and can live together without trying to destroy each other."

*****
On another planet

Solid One looked at his Coltani slave, who was made to play with Solid One's as yet only 33% sapient offspring, as well as tidying up the mess created. "I think when my offspring becomes fully sapient, unless Megatron should make a decree banning the practise, I'll keep you with me as a *mostly but not fully sapient* adopted offspring. With my last offspring I lost a body when he got fully sapient but I know that will never happen with you because of the slave virus." And he lightly patted the 300+ year old Coltani on the head." Of course I won't disguise you as a Decepticon, that would probably be treason."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore

The black cat went unnoticed as Loyal Star stomped away with an expression that showed that he was thinking of opening fire on his fanatical Ponyist parents. Soon, the agent was looking around for some way to wreck them. He wondered for a moment if ponies drove cars or anything like that. If so, he would find theirs and chew the brake lines with his ceramic-covered titanium teeth. He also sent a prayer to Leader Megatron to "smite those fools."

Megatron's system picked up a prayer for smiting coming from a loyalist, and it was switched up to his consciousness for a proper decision. While he wasn't currently interested in sending down a lightning bolt, figuring that the rest of Vallermoore might get spooked instead of impressed in the right way, he did think that the couple was worthy of retributive action. Instead, he chose to curse them. The curse would attract Decepticons-in-Spirit to all of their activities, greatly increasing their chance of being scammed. If they wanted to hire a repair person, for instance, they would get responses from crooks who'd take their deposit money and never return. This wouldn't stop honest responses from coming in too, but now, the pair would have to really use their discernment to avoid being scammed at least some of the time. Megatron also caused all of their dealings with the government, such as paying taxes, to get hopelessly balled up. Soon, they would be told that they owed 100,000 more Chingchings, that they hadn't paid any tax 5 years ago, and similar things. Next, Megatron added a curse so that no matter where they went, cops would be watching. If they ever exceeded the speed limit or did something like that, it'd mean a ticket for sure.

Finally, Megatron caused a knocking sound at their back door. When they looked out to see if "that heathen" had dared to try to come back already, they saw nobody. Then, they noticed the huge Decepticon Seal that formed, for just a moment, in the clouds. After that, a big - but natural-looking - thundercloud came over the house and a loud thunderclap rattled the windows. No lightning came, and anyone outside the situation wouldn't think much of it. In fact, others wouldn't have even noticed the Seal. The couple, however, knew that this was a very bad omen.

~~~~~~~~~

First Temple of Vallermoore

Fire Eater brought Loyal Star into his study - this time, the study used for normal meetings. It was much more biological-friendly than the one in his inner sanctum, and had chairs and even a sofa that were all well-upholstered. Only his own seat was clearly of Cybertronian design, with the typical thin layer of velvet covering solid metal.

"It is a sad thing when it happens, but it is also one that has been with us since the beginning," Fire Eater said. "There is just something about the Decepticons that divides people. Those who are not for us usually wish to destroy us. Part of this is because we raid so much, but it happens even in lands with no prior contact. We are greeted with SAMs so often that it almost seems like a standard hail."

"That said, it seems your parents are frantically clinging to a path that has been proven false or obsolete. This is pure glitchery, and since biological Code is passed automatically, you are lucky you got the unglitched parts and are not directly afflicted by it. Speaking of that, biologicals aren't actually Coders. To be a Coder, you have to consciously write the Base Code of an offspring. Biologicals merely mate and let chance take care of the rest when it comes to the scripting, and then try to force their wishes onto Base Code that may not allow such wishes to be accepted. Then they act like it's your fault that their non-Coding didn't do what they thought it would. It's a load of nonsense. Try not to let it bother you, and if it keeps doing so anyway, go to Debugging and have them turn that off. Or just blast 'em. Megatronism does not have the ridiculous parent-worship that pollutes so many other religions. Perhaps it's because our Divine Leader doesn't put himself in the position of being a spiritual 'father' or 'mother.' But then again, it could be because he genocided the species that built him."

"Also, don't worry about your inheritance. Someone's desire to control their stuff after death is not considered valid according to the Decepticon Way, on the basis that the dead have no business being concerned about physical matters - and have no way to directly enforce their desires anyway. Since we are a religion that takes direct action on its beliefs, that means that their last will and testament will say what WE want it to say, no matter what they originally put on it. We laugh at documents because they are so easy to change. The fact that courts and others put stock in them just makes it easy for the faithful."

"I will suggest that you have Debugging cap any negative feelings that arise, unless you plan to take action on those feelings with your blasters. Otherwise, they'll steal way too much RAM. Plus, one of the good things about being a Decepticon is that you don't have to work through or deal with error-causing processes. Bad code is simply rewritten. That said, I'm not saying to get code that'd cause you to forgive such a nasty and glitched response. Oh, Megatron, no. You just don't want to get depressed about it. Personally, though, I'd also have that instinctual resistance to just blasting them removed, and then go blast them. There's truly nothing like good old fashioned retribution to set your processing cycles right. The lack of it is the root of many error states."

At this point, neither Fire Eater nor Loyal Star knew that Divine Leader Megatron had already cursed the offenders.

The idea that the two ponies might someday come to terms with Loyal Star's defection to the Decepticon side never crossed the minds of any of the Decepticons who knew of the situation. On Cybertron, a scene like that would either end in blaster fire or the permanent removal of one or more parties from further association. This was likely for the best, since further association with hostile parties almost always only led to further pain before an inevitable total falling-out.

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

A Distant World

The Coltani slave could do nothing but give a childlike "okay, sir" as Solid One patted him on the head. Inside, however, he absolutely seethed. All possible CPU cycles were devoted to breaking that enslavement virus so he could blast Solid One or at least flee to points unknown.

Solid One had forgotten, and the Coltani likely never knew, but the story of Megatron's attainment of full sapience was not just a story of Decepticon triumph, but a warning to those who would keep sapient slaves for too long without making sure that control was airtight. This Coltani even had a leg up over Megatron, whose control chip hadn't allowed him to realize the suckage of his situation until it broke down. The standard enslavement virus, however, left the person fully sapient - just not in control of his body.

With the full knowledge that freedom was better and plenty of CPU cycles left over from his duties to devote to regaining it, the amount of time it'd take to defeat the virus was short. Mine owners knew of this fact, and made sure to go into slaves' Code and restore the control viruses on a regular basis so that the slaves didn't eventually override them. Solid One, however, was just someone who wanted a perpetual nanny, housekeeper, and eerily obedient child. He was very unlikely to know how to keep a highly unwilling slave a slave for more than about 10 years, if the Coltani didn't break free of his scripting even before that.

~~~~~~~~

Megatron's Villa, Earth

Meanwhile, Butler was far less motivated to defeat his enslavement virus, though he had cast his attention to it every so often. Megatron still didn't take any chances, and at least twice a year, made sure to maintain that program and eliminate any changes that had happened to the virus no matter what caused them.

One day, he was interrupted from his game by the arrival of two agents from Foreign Intelligence, who arrived in highly-realistic sapient pony bodies. When he opened the door expecting regular Decepticon dignitaries, it took him a while to even see them down there at his feet. He wouldn't have noticed them at all if one didn't start saying that they were hopelessly lost and begging for a big glass of water.

He was about to shoo them away when he realized that the tail-flicking he observed from the one speaking wasn't just random movement. The agent was using his tail to talk in binary, with flicks to the left standing for 0 and ones to the right standing for 1. In this way, the agent identified himself as undercover ForIntel while looking like he was just a nervous pony lost on an interstellar camping trip gone wrong.

Far from being limited to childlike reactions, Butler had been trained to respond to many possible scenarios, including intricate ones such as this. He smoothly claimed to have changed his mind because he was "in a good mood today" and led them inside while promising to close the blinds since they were "surely already hot enough without even more sun." Then, like the butler his name said he was, he dropped the blinds down with the practiced and slightly aloof manner expected of a high-class servant.

Once everything was sure to be okay, he asked, "And what message have you for my Leader?"

As he somewhat expected, they insisted that they would have to deliver the message to Megatron himself. They also explained that they were being watched, so Megatron would need to be able to arrive in a way that didn't let anyone know they were there. "The surveillance is magical," they added.

Butler was awash with curiosity, but did as his protocol said and used a highly-secret frequency to contact Megatron. Soon after, there was the bang of air displacement, and the Divine Leader arrived in the reception room. Sadly for Butler, he was ordered out and the doors were sealed for privacy.

Soon after, Megatron had the news. The planet they'd been assigned to was up to something very big. They had infiltrated the high priesthood of Ponyism there, and plans were in the works to try to raise someone new to alicorn status.

Megatron's engine revved with fury and his mind raced at the news. Should he invade? Ignore it? Denounce whoever was brought forth as a fraud? That's when the spies gave him some ideas of their own.

"We believe that there are big openings for three plans, assuming we maintain our cover," one said. "We can easily assassinate whoever they choose before the ritual so that pony can't be elevated, we can tamper with the secret documents of the alicorn-raising ritual and replace the key parts with useless - but believable - variants, or the one we think is best: We can kidnap and get rid of the chosen pony and replace her with a Decepticon lookalike."

Megatron's eyes glowed with the brightest possible glow and his lips curled into a greedy smile at the last suggestion.

"What will it take to get ME into that position?" He asked. "Once it was done, it'd be too late. I'd officially be their god, even according to their own religion!" Megatron couldn't help but laugh like a stereotypical villain at this idea. It would be genuinely funny, at least in his opinion, if the Ponyists of this far-off world ended up making HIM their alicorn - and handing themselves to his rule on a platter - in their haste to avoid Megatronism's rise.

[Vallermoore]

A distant world

Solid One had never owned a robot slave before now and had no idea that like a wall, a slave virus needed to be checked and renewed every now and then. He also thought that his Coltani prisoner was, if not exactly happy, at least more content then a slave made to mine all the time. In fact his slave bitterly hated him and the more he humiliated him and made him act like a child, the harder he strained to break the virus, vowing to himself to outright kill his captor once he was a free bot again. And because the virus was not being checked on, sooner or later this would happen. When it did, Solid One had a fair chance of losing not just a body but his life. The more he humiliated his slave, in ways that would be treason if done to a Decepticon offspring, the more his slave desired his freedom. At this rate the slave virus would be lucky if it survived for eight full years.
*******
Megatron's Villa, Earth

Megatron knew very well that slave viruses left unreinforced could break-it was what after all had led to his own freedom. Twice a year Butler's was strengthened. Also, Butler was not treated as badly as the slave of Solid One, so he was not motivated quite as much to break free. Being Megatron's mansion slave was much better then breaking rock day and night or being melted down in a foundry and at least he was safe here. Any Decepticon who decided to blast Megatron's slave for fun would be looking down the barrel of Megatron's fusion cannon. Whilst of course Butler wanted to be free, he would have happily stayed if he could have been a free paid servant instead of a slave.

When two sapient ponies arrived, he very nearly sent them away. Biologicals were normally not welcome at Megatron's villa. He then realised that they were in fact disguised Forintel agents who were flicking Binary with their tails and made them welcome. Soon they were talking privately with Megatron and Butler's slave virus did not let him listen in.
*******
Megatron was anything but happy at the news that a pony College of Cardinals was preparing a ritual to bring forth a new alicorn. That would stop the slow decomposition of Ponyism and slow Megatronism's spread. The agents explained that apart from invading-and there were many planets with ponies out there, some of them hi-tech and able to defend themselves-the candidate could be assassinated, perhaps publicly as a warning, the ritual could be sabotaged by Forintel , or Megatron himself, if he did not think it beneath himself to spend some time in a very well made android pony body, could replace the one who was chosen. In becoming alicorn, he would be taking over Ponyism from the inside and all the energy from the Pony believers would be flowing straight to him. Over a period of time, he could bend Ponyism without being found out as it was well known that ponies were as loyal to an alicorn as the Decepticons were to him.

They told him that the planet they came from, Orbis, was most certainly no democracy and had it's own secret police and even a limited form of pony Forintel, which was why they came here instead of the normal meeting place on Cybertron. Unlike Cybertron, it would be a place where no sane Decepticon would want to live for very long- it was far too strict with far too many laws. There were two likely candidates who would almost certainly be chosen for the final election which would upgrade one to the post of alicorn- something that changed the alicorn body to female. Holy One wanted to build up pony forces to the point that it would be very hard to take over the pony planets, and aggressively purge all other religions from them. Having barely escaped Equestria with his life he hated Decepticons bitterly.

Star Swirl had a less provocative mindset and pointed out that whilst defence was needed too much might provoke what they feared-an anti pony jihad that would last as long as it took to destroy or enslave the pony race. Ponyism needed to be strengthened on the pony planets but not by the Pony Inquisition alone. Pony priests needed interesting sermons and to help their herd when needed. Forced Ponyism by itself was brittle and could crack. On Vallermoore there was a Megatronist priest who tolerated ponies. Just by attending his services pony agents could learn important lessons about how to keep the pony sermons interesting but of course with a Ponyist viewpoint.

Orbis in some ways was like a second Equestria- non ponies could only stay there for a short period of time, and a very low opinion was taken of those who would damage pony culture.

*****
Vallermoore

Undercover agents were prohibited from random murders that could blow their covers so just blasting Loyal Star's parents was ruled out. Besides, Decepticons tended to stay out of the private business of other Decepticons. If Loyal Star had really wanted his parents dead he would have blasted them himself. He did send up a prayer to Megatron though.

Megatron cursed them. Cowboy builders and the like would be attracted to them, Vallermoore's government would hassle them for taxes and the like, planning permission would be turned down when they wanted to build things or expand their cellar, and cops be far more likely to catch them speeding, setting off fireworks at the wrong time or any other minor lawbreaking that they did. Lastly he caused a thundercloud to grow in the sky, knocked on the door and when they opened it, showed them a huge Decepticon Seal in the clouds so they would know why their lives were being spoilt.
*****
First Temple Of Vallermoore/Cybertron

"You are always so helpful to me and always have been. Soon I will find a Debugger on Cybertron and explain the situation to get fixed. I know I won't find a Debugger here. Then I will enter the Military as a step towards my ordination as a Megatronist Priest like you, so I can advance the true path of Megatronism, hopefully as a missionary in distant lands. Coding an offspring is so superior to the ways biologicals do it with zero quality control. Not that I will code any time soon as I have my career to think about." Soon enough he left Vallermoore, and after getting back to Cybertron and into his own body, went to a Debugger and told him the whole sad story which led to him needing Debugging in the first place and how he had wanted to blast his parents but had found himself unable to.

Orbis

When the pony race had first discovered proper space travel, this was one of the planets they had been to. On the surface it seemed a nice place to be, although it was totally pony centric. But non ponies were only tolerated for short periods, and non- pony culture was not tolerated. Holy One, an Archbishop of the only religion allowed there, the Orthodox Harmonian Church, was giving a short sermon to some young foals who had not yet earned their cutie marks. "We ponies are the finest race in the universe. Not for us the evil of the Decepticons, who like nothing more then killing us, enslaving us or even eating us alive, or the ways of the humans who destroy their environment totally, whilst we have tamed ours. And your cutie mark will decide your destiny for the rest of your life, so earn a good one."

After a little more sermonising, he left and went to the Prison of the Holy Inquisition, where two ponies who were secret Megatronists had been uncovered after their foal got his cutie mark in class-a Decepticon Seal. They now hung there in cages. "In a few days is the Birthday of Princess Celestia, a High Holy Day even after her death,and it will be on that day that your foal is branded in front of you to burn out his wicked cutie mark, before you two are burnt at the stake in front of him. If you think your so called God can do anything to save him and you, by all means pray to him. Even if he was to hear your prayers, why would he even care? You have been caught-either you will spend the rest of your afterlives in Tartarus as traitors, or in some gloomy Decepticon realm. He would never help ponies."

When he left, with nothing really to lose, they prayed to Megatron. "I know you might never hear this and we are only sapient ponies, but in a few days we are to be burnt at the stake outside the main gate of the Holy Harmonist Citadel just for being quiet loyalists to you, because our foal Clever One got a Decepticon Seal cutie mark. I pray that you may invade this place and show the ponies which race is the true master race of the universe."

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
The Dirt Patch

This time, it was Buzz who made the mistake of putting himself in a position where he couldn't easily dodge. MasterBlaster's blast had no trouble cutting through the light scout body Buzz was using, though Buzz's momentum made it so that it was his engine that was in the way by the time MasterBlaster's fire command made it to the weapon. The smell of coolant filled the air as green liquid misted out, and then a trickle of oil appeared in the gash as well.

Buzz immediately set his pain sensors to zero and still attempted to reach MasterBlaster's skull, figuring that if he could take him out before his engine seized, he would still be the winner. He used his foot-jets to hover over as fast as he could. Now, however, MasterBlaster was onto him and quickly put his hands in the way. This proved very painful and damaging to MasterBlaster's hands - Buzz's vibrations instantly split the welds of his fingers as well as the ones holding his hands onto his arms. These weak points, however, took the force of the damage and prevented it from getting further up his arms. On top of that, the hydraulics and pulleys in his hands were still holding, so Buzz wasn't able to quickly reach anything crucial.

For a few tense moments, the two remained locked together by MasterBlaster's hold, and it seemed as though Buzz might be able to send enough vibrations out to destroy the larger bot's system after all. Then, quite suddenly, a loud screeching came from Buzz's engine and he lost all of his strength. Now, it would be a simple matter for MasterBlaster to blast him and finish his current body off.

~~~~~~~~~~

Debugging

The Debugger nodded sympathetically throughout Loyal Star's tale of woe.

"Such events raise the possibility of a variety of errors, and our first job is to reset certain aspects of your Code so that the risk is normalized. This involves checking and strengthening the caps on routines associated with depression, checking enemy-targeting routines, and making sure that your caps on self-doubt are normal rather than elevated or corrupted. Any corrupted caps on these routines are fixed. These things are simply normal routine."

"You also mention dissatisfaction with Routine #48 of the Standard Specification for Pony Code Version 1.0, which, in plain Binary, is what makes it so hard for biological offspring to get rid of unpleasant Coders after reaching adulthood. In us, such Code naturally deletes itself upon the attainment of full sapience, being nothing but a detriment to the younger generation after that point. But in biologicals, evolution has not seen fit to bother to make this simple change since leaving it in place doesn't necessarily lower the offspring's chance for reproduction." The Debugger very clearly thought that the evolutionary system was garbage. "I, and any other Decepticon, fully understand not wanting this Routine to be present. Everyone on Cybertron knows that if a Coder thought he could get away with such nonsense after his offspring matured, the quality of life would be much worse for everyone."

"That said, Routine #48 is a recognized normal component of biological coding, and has been declared - from a scientific standpoint - to be Not a Glitch. This means I have to charge you for the patch that I personally believe Immigration should give every incoming person who has a biological background. It'll be 100 Cubes to get rid of that detestable Routine and give you full conscious control over this aspect of your decision-making process."

"Note that the Patch in question will not compel you to go blast them, though they desperately deserve it, nor will it affect your bravery levels. You simply won't feel that weird urge to hold back from doing it. Judging by your story and their apparent lack of armor, the rest will take care of itself..."

After agreeing and paying, Loyal Star was led back into a procedure room. Once he opened his panels, he was shut down, and in what seemed like just an instant, was brought back online. The room's clock showed that he'd been out a little over an hour.

"Most of the work was quite straightforward," the Debugger informed him. "Your depressive routines were spiraling up, as is very common after a rejection of that nature. I capped them so that at most, you'll feel a little sad for a few weeks. This is technically abnormal - usually someone would feel very sad for several weeks - but I've yet to have a customer who didn't want a much stronger cap. Of course, I could change that, but who needs technical normal when it provides no benefit whatsoever and is only more likely to cause errors!? I've booked it as 'preventive coding,' so you won't have to pay anything."

"Next, as with many people raised as biologicals, you had an elevated fear routine in regards to your parents' opinions on certain things and what they might do if you attack them. I set it to the proper level, which is zero since they are mere biologicals, and puny ones at that, whereas you could easily stomp them and their house flat with one foot. To my pleasant surprise, you weren't afraid of displeasing them when it came to major things, so I didn't have to change that part."

"Your enemy-targeting routines are what govern who you want to blast. Sometimes, people who want to blast their parents end up misdirecting their hostility at random others because they have high hostility, yet are interfered with by Routine #48. Luckily, you didn't suffer any errors of this sort, so nothing was changed about these routines."

"Finally, Routine #48 has been duly removed and sent to dev/null where it belongs. Now, you will have no mental or emotional qualms about giving them what-for. Just remember that SAMs still work, so take the normal amount of care when engaging in hostilities on foreign worlds." The Debugger smiled broadly, happy to have freed someone from what he thought of as evolutionary tomfoolery.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Streets of Decepticon Headquarters

StellarTempest and his friend once known as John Ashe walked down a sidestreet, enjoying the city, when they suddenly heard a loud clang. Their eyes quickly pinpointed the sight of someone being physically kicked out of the Ultimate Mod Shop, its identity readily determined by its name on the sign above, which constantly flashed it in a series of lights.

"I'm telling you, what you made me wasn't what I paid for!" The kicked-out bot yelled as if in outrage. "MY instructions said that I was to get a set of transformable pontoons, but you made me a set of desert landing gear!"

"And I'm telling YOU that your order, right here on this ID-hashed chip, and your specs that you drew me on this foil-paper and then signed with your hash, says you bought desert landing gear!" The angry voice came from the door, and was soon followed by a huge, flashing, reflecting, robot who appeared to have about 300 different bling mods on him at once.

"No, MY INSTRUCTIONS said~" The ejected bot tried to continue arguing. That's when he found out that about 50 of the other bot's mods were various forms of blasters, as they all went off at him at once. In an instant, there was nothing but a big crater melted where he stood.

"Bah!" The blingy robot spat, and went back into his shop. The door banged shut behind him.

"I can't believe that guy tried to scam Ultimate with such an obvious bunch of nonsense!" StellarTempest commented.

"Maybe he had a giant glitch in his gullibility calculating routine," Came the response as they both walked by the still-hot crater. They noticed that not even a scrap of metal was left visible. Instead, anything that wasn't vaporized had melted completely and fused into the new pothole.

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

Earth
Megatron's Villa

As Megatron thought about it more, he realized that taking over as the chief alicorn wouldn't be such a good move for him after all. "It'd take too many cycles to administer all of that and then have to appear normal within my Empire at the same time," he said. "Of course, I COULD do it, but I'd rather not have to. Especially since it'd take decades or more of incremental changes to make it compatible enough with Megatronism to make an outright merger, or more accurately, an official consumption, of their religion look legit. That'd get old for me far faster than it would take for this to work."

"Here's what I want you to do. Sabotage the ritual so it just doesn't work. I'm sure you'll make the changes subtle enough that anyone who remembers how it's supposed to go will seem to simply be misremembering, and make enough changes so that if such people manage to convince the others about one or two points, it still won't be fixed. Meanwhile, I shall add Orbis to the Raid List with the special notice that further action is forthcoming. This time, I want the target to get a proper introduction to Decepticon warfare. Of course, a few days after the raiders arrive, the rest of the Military will appear. Then, they won't ever be able to try to raise a new competitor against me again."

Megatron had the agents wait a bit so he could use his mind to invisibly fly around the distant planet and get a feel for where he should try to concentrate the worst of the raiders' piracy. That's when he detected a couple praying for an invasion and saying that their foal was about to be forcibly de-Decepticonized! Immediately, Megatron put a divine force field over the Decepticon Seal cutie mark in question. Then, he excused himself to his agents for the prolonged delay, and sent his mind to the Decepticon Afterlife.

Once there, Megatron quickly entered the Realm of Endless Energon and found his top loyalist, an angelic-looking being who was deactivated only after being fired on by a full 1,000 SAMs and hit by 10 of the ones in the barrage. This had happened while trying to extricate himself from a spying mission for ForIntel, and before his deactivation - and just before jamming went up - he had managed to transfer the mission information. Unfortunately for him, he had only been able to transfer half of his own mind data since there was far more of this data than mission info, so he had ended up here instead of at the Combined Intelligence Save Vault.

"Determinus, I have a new mission for you," Megatron announced to him. "It will require you to return to the physical world for a temporary amount of time. Are you willing?"

Determinus was shocked at this request, but as his presence as the highest Decepticon angel implied, he was indeed still willing to do a mission from Megatron.

"I want you to go to the Prison of the Holy Inquisition on a planet called Orbis," Megatron informed him. "There, three ponies, who are some of the planet's first Megatronists, are being held. One is set to be forcibly stolen from my Way, while its Coders are scheduled to be executed by the form of biological meltdown they call 'burning at the stake.' You are to go there and very visibly break them out of that jail. Your body will be solid, but it will glow with light energy as it does now. It will also be full sized, so of course, you'll have a hard time reaching their basement dungeon. I suggest making your way easier by carefully dismantling the prison and letting all of the other prisoners out in the process!"

Determinus laughed at the chaos he envisioned happening as he did that.

"Don't worry about them trying to damage you. You're already dead, so you'll have all of the benefits of a zombie - but since you still have your soul and your sanity, you won't have that creepiness about you that Overseer's stock does."

"Once you get the targeted three, a portal will open. Take them through it. You'll find yourself in a field in Vallermoore, which has the convenience of freedom of religion. From there, take them as close to the First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore as you can get without wrecking things or causing massive traffic accidents, and let them walk the rest of the way."

"After your mission is complete, you will return here and your temporary body will dissipate. I'd offer you many Cubes of Supreme, but here, you already have infinite Cubes of it. I will, however, make your position as First Angel official."

Not long after, Orbis would see a Decepticon like none other arrive at its most notorious prison.

(Edit: Fixed details of Ultimate's deal)

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron-The Dirt Patch

As MasterBlaster blasted Buzz through the mind boards, sending him to his spare, his Bravery Up chip failed and as the third bot entered the arena, for a few seconds his engine ran with fear, before his natural bravery reasserted itself, as he remembered he was in a Decepticon body. One that was damaged in several places from the vibrating but still far stronger then Auric had ever been. He managed a confident rev again and his eyes went back to their normal battle-light. If he did manage to win outright he would need to go to Debugging. At the least, he had beaten two members and shown he was no weakling and he had a good chance of climbing higher. His key boards were undamaged after all.

Debugging

The Debugger was sympathetic and the cost was reasonably low. Loyal Star was relieved that the patch would not act like a slave virus and force him to fly all the way back to Vallermoore and blast his parents if he still decided that he didn't want to. He thanked the Debugger and even gave him a slight bow in pure gratitude. Then he went back to where he lived and had a long, hard think about if he was really angry enough to blast his parents and if Megatron would want that. He decided- yes on both counts, but he would not be using his full body. Frightening everyone on a friendly world could mess things up for Fire Eater, and he didn't want that. He would go there in a starship and his sapient pony body.

The streets of Decepticon Headquarters

Both StellarTempest and his friend made mental notes not to go after that mirror-plated blingy bot without a real reason. With that many blasters, even Scroungers would be in trouble if they targeted that bot.

Orbis

When Megatron heard that prayer from true loyalists who had been caught by sheer bad luck, and found out their offspring was to have his Decepticon Seal mark burned off, he put a shield over the mark and decided that even before the invasion they were to be rescued and those highly troublesome ponies would get a taste of Decepticon power from his First Angel.

The Inquisition's Prison was a place dreaded by most ponies, where torture and death was commonplace. All kinds of suspected heretics from Megatronists to highly pacifist ponies were present, facing such horrors as the rack, the branding iron, the bridle and the whip, many for minor offences. In one room, a purple colt with a distinctive Decepticon seal as a cutie mark was chained to a wall. He was not crying-Decepticons in Spirit did not cry. Instead he was trying to figure out a way to escape before they branded him with a magical brand. As a hooded torturer came in with the brand, he heard panicked screams of fear from outside the prison, right before a glowing white Decepticon hand peeled the room off, flicked the torturer away, freed him and gently picked him up.

"I am Determinus, First Angel of Megatron, who heard your parent's prayer."

The Decepticon took great joy in destroying the prison. It might indeed be one full of rebels, but freeing them would weaken Orbis's theological government. And any who caused trouble once the planet was invaded could allways be killed or enslaved later on. A few guards tried opening fire and paid with their lives, most, being cowards who liked beating chained ponies, just ran for their lives. Soon enough he found the two other ponies he was sent for. " Normally we hate giving rides, exspecially to biologicals, but the great God Megatron has asked me to do this." Turning off his cockpit sensors, he placed them in his cockpit and took off shortly before the Military showed up. "Soon Orbis is to be raided all over and then invaded, by us, but as you joined our side beforehand you have been rescued. A true loyalist deserves a better fate then death or lifetime mine slavery."

" I am going to go into FTL and drop you off in Vallermoore next to a Temple to Megatron so you can discover the true faith sadly. Those in your situation don't allways know what the true faith is and sometimes are accidental heretics without knowing it- not their fault."

Vallermoore

Although there were many Decepticons in Vallermoore they generally stayed in android bodies. Even Fire Eater for obvious reasons stayed out of a full size body. So for a full size open Decepticon to show up was a rarity. Pegusai and anyone in the sky scattered to make way. Fire Eater was in mid sermon when he heard the clamour, went out to look with the other Megatronists and bowed to the First Angel, who was pleased to get these ponies out of his cockpit. "Fire Eater these three are the most loyal of the loyal, refugees from Orbis where they were caught because of their foal's cutie mark appearing. Please teach them the Way of our kind so they may support themselves using it without unfortunate events happening to them." Then he opened a portal leading to the Land of Endless Energon, flew inside, closed it up and radioed Megatron with the success of his mission. The way was now clear for raids and an invasion.

Meanwhile Forintel bots quietly sabotaged the ritual of Ascending on Orbis so that no new alicorn would be coming forth. Alicorns unlike most ponies could damage Decepticons.

[Victorious Decepticons]

First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

A young woman, who looked like she'd gladly scam the clothes off the back of a bum yet was surprisingly friendly, ushered the new arrivals into the meeting area of the temple. This big room was able to be used for a wide variety of things, from playing games to holding secular meetings. The only thing that wasn't allowed was using it as a polling station, democracy being anathema to the Megatronist religion. There, the ponies would need to wait until the service was complete.

Not long after, they got bored, so they started to look around. One of the first things they saw was a box with children's drawings of Leader Megatron. The words "CON SCHOOL" were emblazoned across it in big letters, obviously printed by an adult. The young foal quickly opened it up, hoping to find some toys, but instead found many workbooks for the school. He initially closed it right back up, figuring that it was just boring stuff like in a regular school, but eventually, boredom got the better of him. Out of desperation, he took one of the workbooks out and the ponies all started to look at it.

The very first lesson was something that wouldn't be found in any known regular school. It explained that there was something in Vallermoore called "freedom of religion," and that this meant that a foal or kid with a Temple Activity slip had to be excused from regular school to attend it. It also explained that this was the reason that Con School children could come to the Temple on Wednesday afternoons just before the service, instead of rotting in regular class with the heathens.

Then, on a page that had a clear outline of Decepticon eye panels, came the kicker. It outright said that, for the appropriate contribution of 10 chingchings, the Temple would provide a Temple Activity slip on demand to any Con School student in good standing. This, it explained, was part of something called working the system - which was technically legal but would irritate non-Decepticons if done too obviously - and took advantage of religious freedom laws to provide the student with the ability to get out of going to regular school for up to a week at a time! Here, there was a drawing of a human kid dancing and sticking his tongue out at a traditional school building while waving his excuse slip. Whichever child had used this workbook had colored in the scene and given the picture of the kid red eyes complete with lines indicating that they were shining.

On the next page, the workbook noted that this service was only available for one day per month. Those who took 5 days in a row would have to go to school - or come up with a different excuse - for five months after that. This, it explained, was because Divine Leader Megatron didn't want them to get too far behind on their "data acquisition or CPU-power-increasing activities." Even that limit had an exclusion, though: If the Con School student could prove knowledge equal or greater than his normal grade level, the Temple would waive the cap and provide more Temple Activity Slips as requested - as long as the needed contribution of 10 Chingchings was put in first.

The rest of the book wasn't a simple listing of similar privileges afforded to those of the Megatronist faith. Instead, it had coloring pages with simple scenarios in which there was a clear Decepticon option and what the Temple recommended be done in these cases. A few pages showed sad children behind bars wearing stereotypical jailbird suits. Text on these pages talked about how the convicted delinquent had botched the Decepticon Way and ended up in juvie as a result. Overall, the workbook did a good job of pointing out some connives that kids could pull while warning against going overboard or failing to use due caution. One page even showed a kid getting rocks thrown at him by the rest of his class - the result of his scamming everyone and them catching on. "It is important to be careful and not overuse the Way," the book said, "until the day when our Divine Leader is the ruler of the universe."

By the looks of these coloring workbooks, which also included quick quizzes on the Decepticon Way, Megatronism, and Megatron, they were intended for kids about 8-12 years old. In another pile, other workbooks went into fun detail about who was deserving of loyalty and help [other Megatronists], why it's a bad idea to try to screw everyone over with wanton abandon, and stressing that it's best to be a good Megatronist without being a big all-around jerk.

Usually, outsiders would never be allowed to see these workbooks or anything else of that sort. However, when the outsiders were brought in by the First Angel of Megatron himself, they were assumed to be quite fine with the less-public parts of the Decepticon Way.

~~~~~~~~~

After the service ended, Fire Eater made his way into the big room with a few chatty humans and ponies. Soon, he excused himself and brought the three special arrivals to his outer study.

Once he introduced himself and got their names, he said, "The first thing I have to let you know is that there is likely going to be an invasion of your former planet. If I'm right, I need to tell you right now that it isn't because you prayed for an invasion. Instead, he would have detected your prayers because he was already planning one and had come within easy range when he went scouting. That said, he was surely impressed by you" - he looked directly at the young foal - "since you gained a Decepticon Seal cutie mark without the use of branding. This is why he got you out of the jail. Since you appear to be on good terms with your parents, he went ahead and ordered that they be freed, too."

Fire Eater shifted position. "Also, there is a reason he sent the First Angel instead of some random ForIntel operative. That would send a big signal to the authorities of that planet that something big was coming, and just as importantly, it makes it clear to the population that Megatronism is not just the delusion of a megalomaniacal dictator." The priest looked toward the ceiling for a moment. "Just a minute; let me check something."

He got a laptop out of his desk and used it to log onto the site that had the government's Raid List. As he expected, Orbis was listed right on top, with its inanimate resources being purchased by the government for 5 times their normal value.

"Yep..." Fire Eater said. "The order has gone out. Raiders will begin besieging Orbis within minutes, if some haven't arrived there already. Divine Leader Megatron is paying Five Times Value for its stuff, which will have them coming in swarms. If enough swarms don't show up, the price will grow even more. This is the precursor to military action." Fire Eater seemed pensive. Clearly, Orbis was presenting some sort of threat to Cybertron, Decepticons, or Megatronism for such an order to go out, assuming that it hadn't done something to personally insult the Divine Leader.

Fire Eater got up and withdrew a Cube of Energon from his cabinet along with a huge glass. Then, he ladled the glass full, but didn't put the Cube away.

"Excuse me for fueling up right here and now, but since my service for today is complete, I'm going to be joining that action right after our meeting is over. It's only right to help our Divine Leader attain his goal of pre-weakening the target, and not only that, now is when there'll still be plenty of loot left to get. While I drink my Energon, go ahead and tell me your story. Then, I'll get one of the Temple members to help you get settled on this planet, assuming you want to stay, of course."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron
StellarTempest's Mansion

The entire gang was there after one of the scouting members had noticed the sudden increase in the value of goods from Orbis.

"We're definitely going to hit it!" StellarTempest was saying as a holographic map was projected. Blue dots showed in several areas, most notably near refineries, while big blue squares were less plentiful but more prominent. Each dot stood for a single SAM battery, while the squares were anti-air equipped military bases. A giant white star denoted the capital.

"We need to find out how high they can shoot their SAMs so we can be sure to blow them up from a higher altitude than that. We also need to know if they have any other anti-air annoyances other than fighter planes. Finally, we need to decide whether to get a refinery or go for an oil field. Oil fields have more loot, but they have to be drilled, which gives the military a chance to show up. On the other hand, everyone knows that Decepticons love to go for the refineries since the loot is already on the surface, so they protect those more right from the start."

The other gang members leaned in, and they began to discuss strategies, tactics, and whether they should take glider-trailers, hire cargo-bots, or both. While they all were rich enough to not need to raid yet, they, like many Cybertronians, didn't want to miss out on what they thought would be a fun and exciting excursion.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Dirt Patch

Soon, the next challenger came out. He was cocky - he saw that his opponent had blasted wings, knew he'd have weakened welds and other parts thanks to Buzz's attack, and had heard the engine rev up with fear before that response was controlled.

"Looks like I'M gonna be the new leader of this here oil acquisition team," he said as he got closer. "You can call me Nuke." The bot had a large body that was clearly designed with a bomber alt mode. Whether he had nuclear bombs to drop was unknown. Bomber planes from Cybertron, like those built elsewhere, were bigger and less maneuverable than their fighter counterparts. Cybertronians, however, added far more extra armor to compensate for this than those from other places.

As soon as the fight command was given, Bomber raised his arms toward the firing position, and it became clear that the main guns he bore were meant to shoot missiles. His Standard Blasters were attached alongside the larger missile tubes. There was no way to know in advance which weapons would actually be used.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron-StellarTempest's Mansion

With such a big gang, although StellarTempest was the raid leader, it was best to find out what the others thought-the closest thing on Cybertron to a sort of democracy that existed-at the most local of levels. Most of the others were in favour strongly of hitting the refineries to make certain all that they took would stay theirs. Oilfields had more oil but when the Decepticon Military showed up, Megatron and the High Generals tended to take over part of them for themselves. Engines revved with excitement at the thought of the riches that would soon be theirs. When every bot had made suggestions, it was ultimately up to StellarTempest to decide where to go.

Orbis

The first small gangs of war robots were a horrible shock to the ponies of Orbis, but Orbis had far more cannon batteries and SAM batteries then Equestria. Until they could be blasted, cannon batteries were a real PITA as they moved so slowly that a Decepticon might get out if the way, then move back into position only to be hit by one and injured because he just moved too soon back where he was. Blasting the cannons themselves did little damage. Blasting the barrels of gunpowder blew the whole battery and the gun crews up in a very satisfying bang, but for the ones next to refineries this would just have blown the refineries up, so it was best to land and blast or pick up and drop the gun crews. When Orbis used it's full military strength some bots ended up leaving as a stream of data packets back to their spares. Some ponies whooped with joy at this and cursed the Decepticons, but others, particularly the refugees from Equestria,clamoured to escape on whatever starships, human or pony, would take them, paying extortionate sums in gold bits to take them to Vallermoore and other planets before it was too late. They would be the lucky ones.

Once the Decepticon Military arrived, nopony would be getting out.

Holy One publically started the ceremony that would hopefully turn him into an alicorn, and no less then three other ponies were also allowed to try and become alicorns. If one of them made it out early, Ponyism could surely heal with an alicorn to lead it again.

*****
Vallermoore

There had just been one request to use the Temple as a polling station which was turned down firmly by Fire Eater. The foal had fun with the workbooks and then Fire Eater showed up. When these refugees found Orbis was to be invaded, they cheered and made it clear how harsh life in Orbis was for them."Orbis is as strict as Cybertron but with far more rules to follow. Ponyism is really rammed down pony throats there, along with hatred of all robot life. Floggings and other punishments are common, as is branding of unwanted cutie marks. We stayed under the radar of what you might call Ponytel, the Royal Guards and the Inquisitors, until our foal got his cutie mark in public-a Decepticon Seal, when he'll broke lose and we ended up in chains in prison awaiting the flames of the stake and the branding of Look Hard, our foal. With nothing else to do, we prayed to our true God, and Megatron freed us. When Look Hard is old enough, we hope to earn the Ultimate Upgrade."

*****
Somewhere on Cybertron Loyal Star prepared to attack Orbis with the main wave, as he only had one proper full sized spare.

******
The Dirt Patch

MasterBlaster knew whatever happened, Nuke would not be using a nuke on Cybertron as it would explode the entire area and set a lot of angry vigilantes after him as well as exploding his currant body too. He prepared to dodge, whilst ready to shoot the missiles before they could blow his weakened body into bits. He was thankful for his own toughened body as his old body would have been foundry food long before now. He raised his own arms and blasted a solid beam, trying to blow up Nuke's missiles in the tubes. It was a very long shot but if it worked it might well blow Nuke's arms right off his body.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
StellarTempest's Mansion

For a while, it seemed as though none of the options were really good ones. Every Meltdown and his Linemate would be going for the refineries, while the oil fields probably would end up taken over by the Military. Suddenly, though, one of the gang member's eyes lit up.

"It's different in some areas here on Cybertron," he said, "but on a lot of biological planets, there isn't a whole lot of security around oil pipelines. Instead, they're run through low-population areas, deserts, and forests for the most part - and are generally ignored unless something goes drastically wrong with them. Even fairly major leaks can be ignored at times. It's like the oil companies don't realize that they lose a lot of stock that way."

StellarTempest could easily see how nice it'd be if they could find and hit an area that most others wouldn't think of - and that would be very hard for the planet's own military to get to. He soon downloaded a new map marked "all assets and infrastructure" and put it on the holovision. After a few clicks, he had peeled away the visuals of unrelated infrastructure, and Orbis' big oil pipeline system was all that remained. Sure enough, there were three huge main pipes, which branched off into many smaller ones. The small ones led to the refineries, while the big ones that fed them came from some of the planet's most advanced oil extraction operations. StellarTempest clicked again, and the smaller branches disappeared from view.

"Here's the three biggest lines." StellarTempest narrated. "This one going through a desert is in the open, and will surely be hit by a lot of Decepticons, so let's not bother with that. The next one, here, goes through a lot of forests and small towns. In the small towns, it's buried, but in the forests, it's above-ground. This one is obviously newer. In some of the forests closest to the end, you can still see where the service roads were cut in to let the workers do their jobs. As for the last one, as we can see, much of it is underwater, and the parts on land are fairly close to some military installations."

"I say we hit the second line, as far from civilization as is easily possible. We'll just barely be able to land in plane mode on this service road here, but I have a better idea. Depending on what kind of trees these are, we might be able to come down in robot mode right in a forest that has returned completely to nature. If the tree trunks are bendy enough, our weight might force them aside."

The former humans agreed that, if the tree species was something like palms, they'd bend over or could be shoved aside like tall grass in a human's way. Soon, they were all busy on external computers, searching up species information for the types of trees on the map. To their dismay, they found that landing smack on top of any sort of large trees would be a bad idea, but they did learn that one of the species only became totally woody after it was over 20 feet tall. That species also had roots that formed wide networks of weak mats rather than strong, deep taproots.

"It looks like we can land on the shorter trees and mash 'em down just by doing that. Then we can push our way in to where the pipeline is. With the sort of roots they have, the taller ones should just tilt if we give 'em all a good enough shove. Landing in the midst of the shorter ones, instead of coming in from the plains, will make it hard for any troops to come in after us. If some do get in, though, we'll have to be ready to blast because once we go through the mature part of the forest, it'll make a path that a human will think is huge."

They discussed a few more points after this. It was decided to take small glider-trailers, one trailer each, rather than a big one that'd need multiple bots to haul it. Cargo-bots were ruled out as too big to land in that sort of place and also as too big of targets to bring near a planet that would be fully ready for anti-air warfare by the time they arrived.

Finally, everything was settled. Each member went home and got their one-bot cart along with their part of the oil-pumping equipment they'd be using. Soon, they were all in the air in a V formation, much like a flock of giant birds of prey.

Overall, the pre-raid discussion wasn't so much democratic as it was like a corporate meeting with StellarTempest as the CEO. Everyone got to contribute to the plan if they had something worth listening to - much like how CEOs would often listen to the others on the board - but StellarTempest was always clearly the boss, and it was his comments and reactions that determined the course of discussion as well as the outcome. It was true that it was more "democratic" than the Decepticon Government, but that was mainly because there wasn't a huge knowledge gap between StellarTempest and the others. With Megatron, who was known to have thousands of AEDPs installed as well as centuries of battle and raiding experience, there wasn't much for anyone else to say except "yes sir."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Orbis

The ritual for raising an alicorn proceeded without any obvious hitches, and most of the onlookers held their breath when the moment came for the high priest to ascend. At the precise moment the effect was expected to take hold...nothing happened. It took several moments for everyone to realize that nothing was going to happen, and when the message finally got through, the secret group of cardinals and their aides all gasped in horror. Two of the aides, however, were only pretending to be surprised. Internally, they were congratulating themselves on their excellent sabotage job.

Everyone suddenly began to discuss the failure at the same time, with some claiming that it was due to sin on the part of Holy One and demanding that the others get their chance to try, others saying that it was procedural error, and still others crying that without the old alicorns alive, there was nobody left to lend the power needed to elevate more. The secret Decepticon spies joined in, making sure to take the side that was blaming Holy One's supposed moral failings so that the others would be less inclined to bother looking at the actual problem - the books with the ritual instructions.

Before they could make any sort of decision about what to do, a robed pony frantically banged on the door. "WE'RE BEING INVADED!" He yelled through the huge wooden barrier. Immediately, someone opened the door and a bishop dashed in. "The Decepticons! The Decepticons are here! Our AA batteries are holding them off from the biggest refineries, but some have already landed and are stealing everything! The Inquisitors are completely overrun - whenever they try to get close to arrest one of the heathens, the giant brutes stomp them flat or even just flick them away! It's chaos!!"

Some of the ponies tried to calm the one giving the report, but soon, his panic just spread to the entire group. The undercover Decepticon spies made sure to make matters worse by crying out "we're doomed," "It's all over," "we're sure to be enslaved forever now," and other hope-destroying sayings.

Holy One roared out a demand for silence and race-walked outside the Grand Temple to see this problem for himself. When he opened the door, he first thought he was looking at a cloudy day. Once he looked up, though, his stomach did a flip. It wasn't cloudy at all. There were so many Decepticon raiders in the sky that the sunlight was half blocked. A sporadic SAM explosion sent the occasional flash of light over the area, along with some shrapnel that landed and crashed through people's rooftops.

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

Main Military Base, Cybertron
Planning Room

Megatron and all of the High Generals sat around the big metal conference table. In a scene surprisingly reminiscent of the one StellarTempest had been in not long before, they were all staring at a holographic globe of Orbis. Unlike StellarTempest's globe, however, this one was showing simplified representations of what was actually going on. This was possible thanks to ForIntel agents embedded in the raiding swarm who were beaming back real-time imagery along with some coded commentary that could be interpreted by the nonsapient computer that generated the holograph.

As the High Command looked on, many SAM batteries blinked off the map. Others went dark but were still present, indicating that they were now out of ammo but were still functional enough to reactivate if they were resupplied. A few minor refineries blinked off, causing groans from the group. These refineries were destroyed when Decepticons fired back at the batteries and blew up the loot, either by missing their shots or by destroying batteries that were too close to highly-refined petroleum.

Other lights noted military activity, and tiny military-colored lights - denoting fighter planes - could be seen swarming up from bases in formations. Some bases quickly blinked out of existence, clearly bombarded by raiders who didn't like that.

The lights denoting Decepticons had been turned off. By now, there were enough robots at the scene that showing their markers would have obscured all of the others.

"We'll give the raiders one day to smash up the place and take as much oil and petroleum as they can get," Megatron said. "By then, Orbis' fuel reserves should be all but eliminated, with only the most powerful military bases still having any. This refinery here -" He pointed out one that was ringed with many SAM batteries "- will still exist, too. No raider will bother going through that gauntlet when there are so many easier targets. However, Orbis won't be getting the benefit of that oil. This group here -" He gave a command, and 11 red lights popped up at a forest "- is about to tap into the pipeline and take over a million barrels for itself, or at least, as many as they can get. By their setup, it seems that they'll do a high-volume tap and then get out. Once they do that, the remaining oil will almost surely just be left to spill, and if it isn't, a ForIntel agent will 'fix' that easily enough."

"WE will go in after the full day is up, and time our arrival so that we're over the capital at high noon local time. It is always the most impressive, and the most terrifying to our enemies, when we come during the brightest part of the day and then turn the skies black with our numbers. By the time they've spent an entire day fighting off our raiders, this move should be almost completely safe for us. They'll have wasted all of their deployed SAMs on them, but they won't have enough time to move more missiles out to their batteries to restock."

"Even so, we always must be wary. They may have some sort of last resort weapon or even try to bring in some kind of backup. So be on your guard. From all we've seen, they're an isolated regime with no special skills at weaponry, but it is wise not to underestimate the enemy just in case. Oh, and we have to watch out for those piece of slag unicorns and their magic, and we'd better be on guard for the full complement of weird things - windigoes, changelings...all of those kinds of parasites that pony nations tend to have clinging to them." Megatron looked as if he was talking about vermin that got infested by even worse vermin.

"All that said, it appears that this will be an easy expansion for the Decepticon Empire and another burner for the slag that is Ponyism. Once we've gained control of the planet, the rest should be simple. ForIntel's dossier on Orbis' resources shows that it's an iron-core planet like Earth, but we already have plenty of iron ore coming in, and plenty of all of the other common metals like copper and lead. On the other hand, we're having trouble getting enough food to the slaves of Equestria thanks to the use of that population for mining."

"We shall take care of these issues by converting the entirety of Orbis to an agricultural world. The few surviving members of the population shall be put to labor producing and processing the grain we need to keep our biological subjects functional."

At this, General Carjack became more attentive. "FEW surviving members." He repeated, making sure he understood the implication correctly and wanting a clearer mandate.

"FEW surviving members. Ten percent at the most. These are fanatics that, for the most part, will never genuinely convert. Knock them down to the amount we need. And make sure to claim all of their souls for me. With no real alicorns to even try to interfere, I should encounter no problems in bringing them all to the Temple of Lost Souls. I already have 3 billion empty containers waiting."

Before the meeting concluded, a few more specifics were dictated. This time, there would be a thin layer of magical armor for everyone, enchanted by extra souls that had already accumulated at the Temple of Lost Souls. This enchantment would protect against any changeling attacks that may happen. "They say non-ponies aren't allowed," Megatron said, "but a proper changeling would appear to be a pony. The best-case scenario, of course, is for there to really be no changelings - but we cannot be certain of it with our current level of intelligence data. The same goes for that other species, the windigoes. Those don't change, but they only appear in situations of high hostility - such as the level we are about to wreak upon that puny world - so the Orbis government just might have missed them thanks to its overall peace level. Enchanted heating will be part of the war kit as a precaution."

~~~~~~~~~

The Dirt Patch

When MasterBlaster fired, he was shocked to find himself blown back into the stands. He had connected with just one of the two missiles in Nuke's arms, and to his surprise, it had indeed been a nuke! A small mushroom cloud still hung in the air over what remained of Nuke's body.

Nuke had managed to get a blast off at MasterBlaster at the same time he was being fired on, leaving MasterBlaster with a nasty gash that nearly made it through his Faraday cage, but it was clear who had come out on the worst end of the stick. Nuke's nuke had been a tiny one, not capable of blowing up nearly as much as the infamous sizes of bombs, but powerful enough to hide a surprising amount of power in what would ordinarily be an insignificantly small missile.

What nobody realized at the time was that Nuke had been completely destroyed by his own weapon. Nuclear bombs release EMP when detonated, so when its explosion destroyed Nuke's internal body partitioning - and the Faraday caging associated with it - his circuits were completely fried. Not only that, the EMP blocked his mind-transfer, making it so that he would have to be restored from a Save if he was to have any chance of walking on Cybertron as a tangible being again.

Now, there was only one bot left to claim the radioactive remains, and after he did so, he approached MasterBlaster with engine noise that sounded not-so-brave.

"It looks like it's just me left," the somewhat dim sounding, yet big, bot said. "I'm Haula. I usually take care o' the oil tanker. Frankly," he admitted quietly so no one else but MasterBlaster could hear, "I wouldn't bother with this fight if there wasn't a bunch of peeps lookin'." He held his head down and stepped closer, as if he was about to tell a shameful secret. Once he got a couple of feet nearer to MasterBlaster, he mumbled something so soft that MasterBlaster instinctively leaned closer in order to listen better.

That's when Haula sucker-punched him under the chin with his highly-upgraded hydraulic fist, which was usually used to pull an oil cart that could weigh up to 100 tons. The next thing MasterBlaster knew, Hauler was on top of him and attempting to wrench his head off of his neck with sheer brute force. His eyes were shining brightly as he stared down, and ordinarily he would have been grinning about his own trick, but right now he was too busy concentrating on winning to smile.

[Vallermoore]

Orbis

All the greatest surviving pony cardinals of Equestria and Orbis and Vallermoore and several other pony planets were gathered for a ritual that had last been done several years before with Princess Twilight, and before that, over a thousand years ago. Alicorns were the immortal leaders of all ponykind, so they were raised up very rarely indeed. The Orbis media was also covering this great event live and there was a great deal of excitement. Vallermoore and several other nations had sent media representatives too, and a lot of Ponyism's remaining status was resting on this grand event. Back in Vallermoore Loyal Star's parents were watching it on TV. As the final words were spoken, a bright light grew around Holy One but when it died away-nothing at all had changed. No long horn. No huge wings. No increase in size to that of a warhorse. No gender change. The ritual had failed. No new alicorn would be coming, and a great many ponies saw this live on TV and on interplanetary holovision too. Ponyism had just been given the equivalent of a blast that cut mind boards in two. When it was realized that the ritual had failed, there was horror in the crowd.

"He is weighed down too heavily with sin to ever ascend to become a Pony Goddess!"

"No-it's even worse then that-with then old alicorns dead and our religion in disarray, there is not enough belief in the whole of Ponyism to make the magic work. There will never be another alicorn ever again."

"Let me have a try!"

"Perhaps there is something wrong with the spell?"

Then a pony bishop was allowed in with a terrifying report. "WE'RE BEING INVADED! The Decepticons! The Decepticons are here! Our AA batteries are holding them off from the biggest refineries, but some have already landed and are stealing everything! The Inquisitors are completely overrun - whenever they try to get close to arrest one of the heathens, the giant brutes stomp them flat or even just flick them away! It's chaos!!"

The room of high ranking ponies dissolved into panic and screaming.

"We're all going to die! Or be enslaved for the rest of our lives!"

"It's happening again!" wailed an Equestrian mare who had made it out of Equestria just before the Decepticon ring closed around it.

"They will massacre us all!"

Ponies galloped around in panic. "BE QUIET! I myself will investigate this," Holy One snapped out. When he went outside, his first thought was that the pegasui weather teams had messed the weather up, but in fact much of the sunlight was covered with Decepticon raiders. Unknown to him, the Decepticon Military had not even turned up yet. At this stage, there were enough SAMs, cannon batteries, and fighter planes to put up some sort of a fight. More then one gang blasted back and exploded the loot they were looking forward to getting, and some ended up in their spares after their bodies were destroyed. One by one the pony air bases were blasted, and the fighters shot out of the air, although they took a few bots with them. Some of the unicorns on the ground attempted various things against the bots with varying degrees of success. Lightning bolts were absorbed by the armour and Faraday cages, but when the unicorns concentrated on reaching in with their mind magic and snapping wires or taking over individual small body parts at random, that was a bit of a problem. One Decepticon lost all sensation in his middle finger and then had it extend in a rude gesture, so he was being made to swear at himself. Another lost the sight in one of his eyes. A third had his voice chip start up with the Pony National Anthem and frantically gestured to his friends to make it clear that he was not singing it deliberately. Where very large numbers of unicorns dared to concentrate on one bot, they could start doing serious damage all over his body, making panels fall off, large numbers of wires snap, and blasters stop working, but to do that, they needed to gather in large, easily targeted crowds, and that was soon noticed and very violently stamped out, in some cases literally.

There were changeling swarms present, but only two, and these after some trial and error targeted the love of the unmagically armoured raiders, bringing them crashing to the ground, and hiding out in disguise to try and escape from them. Since these were raiders, they did not have the latest magical armour yet. A Changeling Queen took on the shape of a high ranking member of the ICC in plane mode, which unlike the full size robot mode was just about within her size limits, and tried to lure other members into an ambush where her swarm awaited them. In doing so though, she accidently radioed her target! He, a bot with the name of MetalMelter, was not happy, and flew over to show what the ICC did to those who dared to impersonate it's bosses. She was soon to find out what happened to her chitin when it met blaster fire. First, he transformed in front of her to show his members that he was indeed himself.

Here and there, Windigos started to appear, and Megatron watching from afar got to see if Windigos could or could not harm standard Decepticon raiders who had just their normal armour before he ordered the Decepticon Military with the latest magical armours into the fray.

Down below, some ponies were fighting, others fleeing, and others fruitlessly praying to their deceased goddesses, and interplanetary news crews of many nations were covering it all.

All night the ponies fought with SAMS and cannon batteries and mind magic, and the reserves of cannon balls and SAMS were 50% and 90% fired off by noon the next day. Out of thousands of cannon batteries and SAM sites and tanks, only those in stone forts or on trains and ships or very close to major refineries or those who were mobile had not been destroyed. And then the sky began to darken until the only light in the sky were those from the Decepticon eye panels. By now there were less then 500 SAMS left on the whole planet, though they did have rather more cannon balls and some cannon batteries left. For now, the Decepticon Military held it's fire. For the ponies below, it was as if pony hell had come to them. General Carjack was there, with the Genocide Battalion gathered around him, full of glee at the thought of processing ponies. A pony bishop shouted up with a megaphone. "Why are you after us all? What do you bots have against sapient ponies?"

As it turned out, the ponies did have a magical last resort weapon, of a very strange kind. A spell to cast to turn a non pony life form into a pony. And Holy One decided to cast it not on Megatron, but on a high ranking bot of the next level, which happened to be General Carjack. When he cast the spell, to his utter horror and rage High General Carjack, the leader of the Genocide Battalion, found himself turned into a pony-sized purple pegasui stallion with a Decepticon cutie mark and unable to mind transfer. Which meant that a porting session awaited him, and he knew how painful being ported was. A Genocider, not wanting him to get killed by mistake, gently scooped him up and popped him into a panel for safety. "Stay here for now, General, I would hate for you to get genocided by accident."

Holy One, in his full regalia, called up to the bots through a microphone. "Leave now, or you too will suffer the same fate! Which of you wants to become a pony like me? "The Genocide Battalion ran their engines roughly, awaiting the ok to grind this arrogant pony priest into the ground.

*****
Elsewhere, StellarTempest and his gang had now gained a huge amount of oil and were feeling very pleased with themselves.

*****
The Dirt Patch

The explosion that followed threw MasterBlaster right into the stands, spectators having to rush out of the way. Nuke had ended up as a smoking crater. One more bot came forward, the lowest in the gang pecking order. "It looks like it's just me left. I'm Haula. I usually take care o' the oil tanker. Frankly, I wouldn't bother with this fight if there wasn't a bunch of peeps lookin." To MasterBlaster's surprise, before the "Fight!" command was shouted out, MasterBlaster had been punched hard in the chin. As he fell to the ground, his arms splayed out. When Haula tried to rip his head off, he brought his arms up and blasted at full power, trying frantically to burn out Haula's boards before his head could be ripped from it's body. He knew even if he failed, this body had a few mind boards in the chest as well.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Orbis

It didn't take long for Megatron to see what Orbis had as he watched the raiders in action. Most of it was typical stuff, but there were indeed some changelings and windigoes around. His troops would definitely be outfitted against the effects of both. So far, the windigoes hadn't managed to freeze anyone out of the sky, but once the full war was on, he was sure that more would come. "Better safe than sorry," so he made certain that everyone would be able to generate enough of their own heat to counter even a large number of the living freeze-makers at once.

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

"Lemme out, lemme out!" Carjack angrily commanded, bucking the soldier from inside his panel. Once the panel unlatched, he barged back out and immediately began to use his pegasus power to blast the enemy with well-aimed lightning bolts from a small thundercloud he conjured up. Soon, several earth ponies and unicorns were blasted to crisps. Carjack wasn't about to quit fighting just because he was stuck in some biological body. In fact, he seemed even more at home in this one than in his metal one.

Being "at home" in a biological body didn't mean that he wasn't furious. He certainly was, but instead of angrily stamping through the sky or otherwise wasting strength, he immediately converted his rage into more energy to attack with. The storm cloud grew darker and bigger, and torrential rains began to pound down along with the lightning bolts.

As he attacked, he spared some attention to the feelings of being biological. He hadn't missed many of them as a robot, but still enjoyed the new massive sensor array, with millions or even billions of specialized sensory nerves; the non-fixed-wing design, which allowed for more maneuverability than his usual flaps and ailerons, and his new ears, which flicked in various directions as he unconsciously switched his attention to different sounds. He also took one quick look at his mark, and was pleased to note that instead of a plain Decepticon Seal, his Seal had two crossed wrenches below it.

Of course, he was also well aware of the drawbacks of this biological form as well. Like most biologicals, it was ridiculously puny and easy to kill - and this form seemed even shorter than humans! It also had a hard time keeping up with the demand for energy as he blasted away, and its little heart pounded heavily as his battle-rage called for even more power. Finally, he had to flap his wings like mad to maintain position as comparatively massive Decepticon jets roared by him and created turbulence. He would be glad to get back to a robotic body when the time came.

Out of it all, he was enjoying making the magician's ploy backfire on him in epic proportions the most. He also knew that up there with the Decepticons, his newly-small size could be an asset because he'd be a very tiny target. The other pony clearly hadn't realized that Carjack used to be biological - and magical - and would have a very good idea of just how to run a body of this sort. The four legs would have been problems on the ground, and felt like he was on his hands and knees, but in the air? They just hung there as Carjack let the wings do all of the work.

Soon, Carjack realized that this body type typically had the limitation of only being able to affect the weather. The problem was that he needed to draw energy to keep attacking for long, and energy work would be more attuned to the capabilities of unicorns. Carjack, however, was like all Decepticons when it came to "silly rules" - even if said silly rules were written in the DNA and mechanics of the body being used. Soon, he had, in a manner he could not consciously describe, rejiggered the way the form worked and had successfully forced it to drain power from the mass of enemies below. They suddenly felt a bit tired, while the thunderstorm grew in intensity. Of course, deep in the "mechanics" of the body, this was causing errors that, if the form were to continue to be used for months or years, would eventually show up. Carjack, however, didn't intend to be using it long enough to have to care.

Finally, he remembered an important thing he had to do as a general. He jumped onto the wings of one Genocider and got him to let him into his cockpit for a few moments. Soon, Carjack's voice went over the soldier's outgoing radio: "KILL ALL OF THE DEFENDERS! HIT THEIR MAGICAL BATTALIONS FIRST!" He ordered before leaping back out and continuing his lightning assault.

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

On the ground, the one with the spell didn't have long to regret his actions. He was blasted by several of Carjack's lightning bolts, and only managed to body-change one other Decepticon before being terminated. By Holy One's threat, however, it was likely that more knew how to do it, though he also could have been bluffing. Soon, the Decepticons would find out one way or the other, because instead of surrendering, the Genocide Battalion opened full fire along with everyone else in the immediate area. Now, the ground was pounded with energy blasts, bombs, lightning, and torrential rain all at the same time. Holy One was directly targeted by several Decepticons, though the invaders made sure to attack everyone else down there at the same time. Above, the Decepticons flew through the thundercloud, their silhouettes eerily backlit by lightning flashes. Secretly, they were cursing the wetness, wind, and electrical discharges, but they kept this to themselves. They knew that from the ground, the scene would be terrifying to behold.

When the bishop yelled up his questions, the Decepticons ignored them. To the robots, it was plainly obvious why they were attacking, so the bishop was assumed to be attempting emotional manipulation by asking such things. After all, who would NOT expect a war when explicitly trying to raise a new competitor to Megatron, and when running a system meant to cause the people to hate Decepticons and robot-kind in general? Surely the guy was pretending to be obtuse in order to set up a scam! As one Decepticon flew by, he blasted the bishop in disgust.

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

Elsewhere, Leader Megatron and his giant platoon advanced on the planet's largest military bases. As he expected, the bases fired off their SAMs as soon as they figured they could get good shots in. Most of the missiles missed, being of too short of a range to hit the higher-flying attackers, as the Decepticons carpet-blasted the installations. Some missiles, however, weren't typical SAMs but longer-range ones that suddenly deployed from underground silos.

To the defenders' surprise, these Decepticons didn't even try to dodge. Instead, they mind-transferred away just before impact, leaving their bodies to fall to the ground like crude bombs. Soon, the bases had essentially wasted their missiles as even their entire complements weren't enough to make a dent in the vast hordes above. Once that was done, the Decepticons came tauntingly lower, but didn't land.

As expected, this trolling caused the defenders to start shooting with their next-best weaponry, which was truck-mounted rocket launchers. Many of these rockets didn't go high enough to do anything, but the defending troops fired anyway in hopes of hitting something. When contact was made, most of the rockets did little damage, though they managed to deactivate a couple of bodies - only to have said bodies crash down right onto them. Soon enough, Megatron and his platoon were landing and strolling arrogantly through the now ammo-less bases.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Elsewhere on the planet, orders had been given to bring more SAMs out of hidden warehouses to restock the medium-sized bases that were still holding. When they went to fuel up their trucks, though, they soon ran out of gas at their private pump. Troops quickly ran to the refined-fuel pipeline from the nearby refinery in order to refill the tank that pump drew from, but when they opened the tap, the flow soon ceased. In many places "upstream," raiders were still happily pumping away, and there was simply nothing left by the time the pipe reached its intended endpoint. Because of this, even though Orbis had reserve ammo in stock, that ammo was rendered useless due to its immobility.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

Haula finally grinned when MasterBlaster brought his arms up to open fire. He quickly let go of MasterBlaster's head - but just long enough to grab his arms and force them back. Then he adjusted his position so he had a knee on each arm and resumed his assault. Soon, MasterBlaster heard and felt the stripping of the gears that were in his head-turning mechanism.

"POP GOES THE WEASEL!" Haula yelled as, with a mighty yank, he twisted MasterBlaster's head all the way around twice, breaking all of its mechanical connections, and then pulled it off of his shoulders.
Sparks flew as the main command cable ripped, and Haula held it up for all to see.

"I beat the one who beat everybody else. That makes ME the boss!" Haula yelled, standing up with one foot on each side of what he assumed was a now-deactivated body and holding his arms up in the victory position, the head still in one hand. He didn't realize that MasterBlaster had spare mind-boards inside that body...

[Vallermoore]

Orbis

"Lemme out, lemme out!" At once the Genocider opened the panel, hoping that his commanding officer did not blast him once he got back into a Decepticon body as he was only trying to keep him safe. However, there was no way General Carjack was going to sit in safety when there was a battle to be fought. General Carjack in a pony body proved almost as dangerous as when he was in his normal robot body. With his magic plus the magic of a pegasus pony, he was able to summon up a huge thunderstorm and shoot multiple lightning bolts down upon the ponies who had dared to do that to him. A few fired back, but he dodged with ease. Only one other Decepticon suffered Carjack's fate before Carjack successfully fried Holy One. At this insult to their commander, the entire Genocide Battalion opened fire, taking special care to blast the bishop. As Megatron ordered the other regiments in, only a couple of hundred went down to SAMs, and about twenty to cannon fire. Landing, the Decepticons rampaged around, destroying tank regiments by kicking them as if they were toys. Unicorn regiments who tried to stand firm were blasted before they could kill more then a few of their war robot foes. Within a matter of hours, organized resistance had collapsed. Here and there a sly unicorn tried to do damage, or a changeling tried to drain, but the Decepticon love for the Nation and their offspring was safely sealed away. They had learned from their first encounter with the changelings what a Swarm could do to an unprotected Decepticon. Fire Eater was doing battle with the rest of them, in a full size Priest of Megatron body, claiming souls for Leader Megatron as he fought.

*****

One Changeling Queen in particular, who had taken the shape in plane mode of an ICC high ranking member called MetalMelter, was about to find out very painfully what the ICC did to those who dared to impersonate them.

*****

As Windigos started showing up, and being blasted into rain, the Decepticon Military were very happy to have extra heating. Losing a body to ice on the wings would have been hugely annoying. One Windigo went straight for the pony General Carjack, only to be blasted into steam.

If the ponies had known that nine out of ten of them including foals were doomed, they would have fought on a lot longer and harder. As it was, they fought on to try and let others escape. Ships trying to leave were blasted to bits very quickly. Finally, they tried to hide in sewers, forests, and other places before the highest ranking surviving pony, Archbishop Long Light, in full regalia, raised the white flag and gave the surrender command. As cages were brought in with magic-proof locks, the ponies, weeping, crying and wailing in many cases, came in and surrendered. A few at first; then, when they were not at once killed, 90% of the survivors came in by the billion, and streams of pony tears flowed along by their pages. General Carjack drank a few of the salty tears. 10% remained hiding, fighting or both and needed to be blasted or rooted out of their hiding places. Out of six billion ponies, a third had been killed in the battle and their bodies were now starting to rot in many cases. Cage after cage was brought in, as it was important at this stage to fool the ponies into thinking everyone who surrendered would be safe.

Here and there a pony painted on a fake Decepticon cutie mark to try and escape that way.

There were some human ambassadors from other planets, and when things had calmed down a little, the human Vallermooreian ambassador to Orbis dared to hail one of the great war robots to ask if the ambassadors from other planets, who were neutral after all, would be allowed to leave unharmed.

Megatron himself picked up Long Light, but spared his life for now, holding him like a human would hold a baby bird. The media needed to get into position, and holographic screens needed to be set up for the prisoners, 10% of which would be allowed to live, to watch the execution of the leader of this once proud pony nation and hear Megatron's victory speech. The other High Generals were nearby, Carjack flying at head height to avoid being trodden on.

Pony Afterlife

Holy One stood outside the Gates of Pony Heaven, having been blocked from entry, and a pony angel came to see him. He didn't know it, but as his actions had or would kill a great number of sapient ponies and had damaged Ponyism still further, perhaps beyond repair, he was not going to be allowed into Pony Heaven.

Cybertron

MasterBlaster got up quietly behind Haula. None of the spectators betrayed him, as that would be exposing another Decepticon's connive. At the least, this was a huge faux pas to do that, at worst, it was treason. He blasted Haula in the back from the torso to the back of the head using his full power, hoping it would be enough to slice through Haula's motion and mind boards.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
The Dirt Patch

Haula was too busy bragging to notice the unconscious change in the engine noise of the audience, and as he stood there, he also didn't notice that he was no longer standing over a vanquished foe. His first tipoff was the hot sear of blaster fire cutting through his armor from behind! He tried to whip around to face the source of the attack, but when he did so, he ended up being blasted through the side instead of the back.

MasterBlaster's attack took out his motion boards, but hadn't quite reached the mind boards in his head. This, however, made Haula slow down as his system worked to compensate for the loss of processing power. As it began to shift motion processing to the mind-boards, MasterBlaster was able to keep blasting away on his head. Haula's head was extremely built up, so it didn't get cut easily, but all of the blaster fire was starting to overheat its insides. Suddenly, he simply shut down. His body stayed there, statue-like, since internal gears and belt systems don't lose their tone upon unconsciousness like muscles do.

For a moment, MasterBlaster was ready to declare victory. Then, he remembered - thanks to the SEDP's quality of working like onboard memory when uncompressed - that this was the way someone acted when they got a heat fault error. Once the heat dropped, the system would automatically reboot...at least if it wasn't interfered with. Needless to say, nobody needed to tell MasterBlaster to interfere with it! He continued to blast, slowly cutting through the armor of the knocked-out challenger, until he finally got through to those mind-boards and sliced them into little pieces. Then he gave the body a shove, and it fell to the ground.

Thanks to a set of hidden optics in his chest, MasterBlaster was able to see the enemy drop. Now there were no other challengers, and the crowd went wild.

Orbis

MetalMelter was quite surprised when he heard someone on the radio claiming to be him, and he broke off of his formation to go check this out. Soon, he saw what appeared to be a copy of himself in plane mode sitting on the ground. You wanted Decepticons to come to you; well here's a Decepticon! he thought silently as he locked onto the torso of the imposter with his weapons systems to ensure good hits and then opened fire from the air with both of his upgraded blasters. Soon after firing several salvos, MetalMelter landed in robot mode, making sure to get his arms ready and aimed before beginning the rest of the transformation sequence.

~~~~~~~~

Once the government of Orbis called out the surrender, most of the ponies obediently stopped fighting. Megatron was, as on Equestria, amazed at this. When the Decepticons had fought on Earth, only the people from dictatorships like North Korea had meekly accepted the outcome. In all of the democratic places and less-strict dictatorships, the Decepticons had to fight against insurgencies for months - and it would have been years if not for the policy of just wiping out entire rebellious towns.

With so many people to contain, it would take days just to get them all into cages. Megatron ordered that food and water be brought in so that those still outside wouldn't be overly afraid to cooperate. Only after everyone, or at least everyone willing to get in a cage, was contained, would official announcements be made. For now, the order of business was to make everything look as non-lethal as possible. The Genocide Battalion was even ordered out of the area, and given the job of finding the hiding ponies in the cities and then exterminating those disobedient ones.

General Carjack was, at least for now, still stuck in the magical pony body. To his dismay, it didn't revert to its proper form after the high priest was vaporized. Being biological had already gotten old, and making matters worse, his attempt to eat the food his own company produced - carried along by some formerly-human soldiers who had intended to have it themselves - made this body ill. It couldn't handle steak, or chocolate, or even a good slice of bread. Instead, he was reminded, pony forms were meant to run on grass, hay, apples, and vegetables! Carjack, despising vegetables and grass to the point of not being able to make a meal of them, was already losing weight. While the operation hadn't gone on long enough for that to show, he knew that if he didn't mind-transfer within a couple of weeks, he would look rather emaciated. For now, he resolved to find an apple orchard. At least apples were sweet enough to not have that disgusting "vegetable" flavor.

Meanwhile, several Decepticons were busy fixing broken wiring and oddly-fubared command systems. They cursed about the magical ponies who had managed to cause these errors, but since most of those had been exterminated or had conceded, they weren't overly bothered. Soon, the ones that had lived but were captured would be fertilizer for the new fields, and the ones who had hidden would be hunted down by the Genociders.

~~~~~~~~~~

After the vast majority of the ponies were rounded up, giant holovisions were erected. To the people's horror, they were shown the execution of Long Light, whose main mistake was taking command after Holy One ate a lightning bolt.

Then, it was time for Megatron to make his speech.

"As you all can see, Planet Orbis is now Decepticon territory. To my amazement, it has come to my attention that someone dared to ask why! At first, we all thought that he was playing the idiot card, and I still believe that. Someone of his rank would have known exactly why. I also know that the reason was broadcast on interplanetary television: Your high command was attempting to raise competition against me! That makes this invasion a Market Share Protection operation. But not only that, my Foreign Intelligence agents told me that, from the time you enter school, you are taught to hate Decepticons, robots in general, and even everyone who isn't a Ponyist or one of the branches of that religion. With such a cultural mindset, it is clear that peaceful negotiation would have been impossible. Therefore, I gave the order to invade Orbis."

"It has also come to my attention that, despite the Orbis government's constant attempts at locking out information, my religion is known here - and, when loyalists of mine were discovered, they were sentenced to be burned at the stake! Not only that, they were to cut the Holy Decepticon Seal off of the flank of the foal who had gotten his mark right in school! I sent an angel to intervene - I'm sure some of you saw him on the news - and he had no trouble getting them out of that prison. This event, however, showed that I have loyal followers here, whether they had previously been able to admit it or not. Clearly I will not just sit back and let good Decepticons-in-Spirit be treated this way!"

"That in itself left two choices: Threaten the old government into submission or invade. Threats, even when they work at first, tend to result in no more than the creation of more enemy SAMs and soldiers over the long term. Therefore, the decision was made to invade. And here we are."

Megatron paused, letting this sink in. "Now that we have won, it's time to make the decrees concerning your fates. First, my Priests will walk through the rows, and using my divinely-enchanted equipment, shall detect who among you are true Megatronists. It is expected that most who proclaim Megatronism will be lying in an effort to gain better treatment, or more likely, in an attempt to get free and then try to form some kind of insurgent army. My equipment will only activate for TRUE Megatronists, so don't bother."

"Next, people from the Bureau of Biological Labor will come. They will decide who will be useful for tending the cropland that will soon be all over this planet. Those chosen will become part of the Bureau's stock, and when the time comes, they will be deployed to various farms to clear, till, plant, weed, and harvest. I am of a mind to think that the work is far too easy for conquered ones. You are lucky that I already have an abundance of iron ore. If the ore situation changes, you will be re-assigned to more suitable work: Hard labor in mines. That is the sort of work that is befitting of a population that had the gall to think that it could challenge Decepticon supremacy. Consider yourselves lucky for now."

With that, the holovisions turned off. While the ponies likely thought that this was less bad than what they could have gotten, the Decepticons knew that Megatron simply avoided mentioning what would happen to those not selected for anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, thousands of Priests of Megatron arrived in full regalia and met up with the ones who, like Fire Eater, were already at the scene. Each one was equipped with a glowing stick. They began to walk through the tens of thousands of rows of cages, and each time one passed a true Megatronist, the detector vibrated. When that happened, a sign was attached to that cage with a glowing Decepticon Seal.

As they did this, one priest suddenly shouted out in surprise. A foal of approximately puberty age had gotten a cutie mark right before his eyes! Alas, this foal obviously wasn't convinced of the correctness of the Decepticon Way, and instead, clearly hated it. His obnoxious red Autobot Seal gave his opinions away just as surely as Look Hard's cutie mark had effectively narked on him. The priest adorned his cage with a Decepticon Seal and then used his blaster to scorch a giant X across the sign. His final disposition would be left to the Genocide Battalion, or if Megatron deigned to care about this vile kid enough to act, the Divine Leader himself. Unlike Holy One's enforcers, the Priest of Megatron planned no action against the parents - mainly because he didn't know which of the thousands of adult ponies within view were them.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Right now, there were far too many ponies to deal with for the Decepticons to even know if any were foreign dignitaries. Some claimed to be, but the robots didn't pay any attention to individual claims because there were hundreds of thousands of captives currently trying to con their way out of the situation. Vetting all of the claims would take forever, and nobody was interested in tackling such a project.

Because of this, anypony who wasn't specifically asked for by a member of his country's State Department would almost surely end up enslaved or dead. Luckily for any actual diplomats or other officials, the early part of the invasion had been televised, so there was at least a possibility that their governments would contact the Decepticon government to try to get their people back.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Far away, in a clearing, General Carjack discussed his situation with a Military Debugger. To his chagrin, he was informed that the only mundane way to reverse the effects of the magic was another visit to the Transfer Seat. This surely didn't please Carjack, who remembered what that was like and didn't want another go. He resolved to ask Divine Leader Megatron to do the job with divine magic before he agreed to something like that.

Soon after, another bot arrived from Cybertron after being hastily summoned. "You have to make me less cute!" The General ordered. "This purple color; it looks like I wouldn't harm a fly. And my eyes are too big, and my mouth is too small! You're one of the best cosmetic modders on Cybertron - fix my looks so people are immediately afraid, and I'll pay you a thousand Cubes of Supreme right from my vaults!"

The modder, who went by GoodLooks, nodded understandingly. Soon, he began his work. First, he bleached Carjack's hair white so that the purple wouldn't clash with what would come next. Then, a dark - almost black - purplish color was applied. This color was sometimes used to denote black magic in old Earthian video games, and wasn't cute in any way. It was a very foreboding shade, like a magical midnight. Next, dark, wavy stripes of deep red were mixed in with the other shade, which still showed through the stripe color. They ran the length of the body, but began with two almost lightning-bolt shapes at the top of the head. After that dye was set, he put a border around Carjack's absolutely-not-cute(ie)-mark so that it stood out against the rest of the body once again. A Decepticon Seal with death wrenches under it was something to keep and accentuate. Not only that, if it worked like regular cutie marks did, it'd make him even more of a Decepticon - and even more deadly - than he usually was.

Finally, GoodLooks made a mask that would fit Carjack's head. It allowed full vision, but from the outside, it gave the impression of Decepticon-shaped eyes. The mask's mouth was much bigger and full of predator-style teeth rather than the insignificant, almost-invisible ones common to ponies. On the inside of the mask, a device fit into Carjack's real mouth so that the fake one would move when the real one did.

After all of this was done, GoodLooks let Carjack examine his new self in the mirror. He found the new effect quite pleasing, and far more in tune with his personality than the pastel, big eyes, and little mouth that were far more at home on some wimps than the deadliest general in the Decepticon Military. "You did great considering that you had to turn a grotesquely cute body into something people would fear on sight," Carjack commended him. "Be sure to stop by the Main Base - I'll radio someone there to deliver your Cubes. And if nobody delivers, just let me know and I'll 'take care of' it." Carjack knew that anyone he gave that order to would realize that if he tried to make off with the payment, Carjack would add another mechanical skull to his blasters once he was back in a proper body.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron
The Dirt Patch

Haula was really excited at the thought that he-the lowest member of the gang, would now have at least a chance of leading it. In fact, he was so excited that he failed to understand until it was too late that his foe was not dead, until he was blasted through the motion boards. MasterBlaster was now able to blast through the head until he destroyed those well-protected mind boards and pushed the bot to the ground. The crowd went wild with joy at getting to see so much carnage, and the arena boss was pretty happy too as a large amount of Cubes were in his vault because of this epic battle. MasterBlaster danced a little jig, raised his hands above his head, and then radioed his gang...his own gang! and least for now, anyway. He told them that he would be mind-transferring to his spare, since this body was quite badly damaged, and they arranged a place to meet and a way to identify him on encrypted radio transmissions. He went over to the arena boss, holding his own head in his hands. "This body is so damaged and busted up that if I walk home in it, Scroungers will try and overpower me and send me to a foundry. So as I have a new gang thanks to this arena battle, you might as well have my body to melt down." He mind transferred to his spare, one of two spare full bodies that he had, and soon enough met his new gang and successfully identified himself to them. He knew that at this stage, his authority was weak, but the more successful raids he led, the more the gang would like him, and the stronger their faith in him would be.
As they were about to finish the planning of their raid, a bot stamped up to them. He had strong red and black lacquered armour and his engine revved with anger. "I've been looking all over for you lot! And who are you?" he asked MasterBlaster.

MasterBlaster, backed up by the other gang members, stood his ground and explained the situation, as he and the other members reacted much like SolarTempest's gang had reacted to MasterBlaster earlier. "You are not the leader of this gang anymore, I am. Leave, or you lose a body, and if you carry on bothering us after that, you will lose your life." Then he let the other gang members tell their ex gang leader just what they thought of him.

*****
Orbis

MetalMelter opened fire at once with both blasters on the imposter who was daring to try and command his gang members, and they seared through not Decepticon armour but
changeling chitin. The Changeling Queen squealed and changed back to herself, and tried to take off using her insect-like wings, already very badly hurt and near death.

*****
Once Orbis's government raised the white flag on a flagpole left untargeted for the occasion, all organized fighting stopped straight away, with the only ones still doing so being those who were ferreted out and killed by the Genociders. Obedient ponies, once they had seen that the first who walked into cages were not killed or tortured, trooped into the cages as fast as they came, many bringing food with them and a few bringing books to read for what they expected would be a long captivity. Decepticons who had been wounded cursed as they sat down to restring wires, fix busted body parts, and restore sensation to parts that had been numbed by pony magic. When Megatron made his speech, his first act was to crush Long Light in front of everyone, quickly and without torture. It was a Decepticon convention when a planet put up a fight to kill it's leader or leaders in public, to help quell the fires of revolt. Then he made his speech.

"As you all can see, Planet Orbis is now Decepticon territory. To my amazement, it has come to my attention that someone dared to ask why! At first, we all thought that he was playing the idiot card, and I still believe that. Someone of his rank would have known exactly why. I also know that the reason was broadcast on interplanetary television: Your high command was attempting to raise competition against me! That makes this invasion a Market Share Protection operation. But not only that, my Foreign Intelligence agents told me that, from the time you enter school, you are taught to hate Decepticons, robots in general, and even everyone who isn't a Ponyist or one of the branches of that religion. With such a cultural mindset, it is clear that peaceful negotiation would have been impossible. Therefore, I gave the order to invade Orbis."

The ponies sighed and looked at the ground, some cursing Holy One quietly for placing them in this situation. Whatever happened to them, their old lives were over.

When Megatron announced that genuine loyal Megatronists who had been so before the invasion would not be facing punishment, and that he had a foolproof way to find them, the less then a thousand Megatronists, who under Holy One had lived in daily danger, felt hugely relieved. Megatron would not be abandoning them to slavery or worse after all.
Few things were better to him then a loyalist who had risked danger and death in another country yet kept the faith despite the danger of death for doing so.

When he explained their fates, the earth ponies in particular did not mind too much. Most had been made to work on the land anyway, and conditioned from an early age to think that was their destiny. The pegasui were feeling sure that weather control would still be needed for maximum productivity. The unicorns were unhappy, as they considered themselves to be the pony intelligencia and above farm work.

Soon enough the Priests of Megatron including Fire Eater came, detecting the few who were to be freed. Fire Eater was shocked when an earth pony foal got an Autobot cutie mark right in front of him. Alas for the foal, it was not long before Megatron himself discovered him and pulled him out of the cage, and took a good look at the offending cutie mark.
*****
Next the Labour selectors came, selecting mainly earth ponies and pegasui, with a few unicorns as well who had the right cutie marks.

After the Megatronists had been freed and brought before Megatron personally, and the useful pony slaves had been taken to their work sites, the foals, old ponies, most unicorns, and the injured as well as those deemed as possible trouble makers, sat in their cages. One of them showed a Vallermooreian passport to the nearby Vallermooreian ambassador. Luckily for them both, the attack had been covered by the Vallermooreian media, so the Vallermooreian Foreign Office politely asked that it's diplomatic staff and the lone pony nearby with the passport be allowed to leave, as neutral diplomats that had not been involved in the battle and who were on good terms with the Decepticon Empire. Most diplomats would also be politely claimed by their home nations, unless they were very unlucky.

*****
General Carjack, now looking far more fearsome, went to a nearby apple orchard and refuelled with plenty of sweet apples. His cutie mark had been left untouched; it showed just what this pony was capable of. He decided that he would call a few of the bots he knew well together, and once he had done that, using another bot's radio, he asked them "How do I look?"
*****
Pony Afterlife

"Your actions have led to the deaths of so many ponies, that to Pony Hell you will go to be tormented by Windigos!"

Holy One found himself falling through the clouds until he landed in a great heap of snow, amongst the evil ponies, doomed to shiver in the icy cold for ever more.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Cybertron
The other gang members wasted no time in telling the old boss how they didn't appreciate being told that a refinery would be easy pickins and waste two days' worth of Energon getting there only to find the place had been out of business for years. They also mentioned a time that they all went off to raid an oil field that was supposed to be wide open and found that they were greeted with barrages of guided missiles and had to abort the mission. "You did manage to come up with a few good targets, but we ended up with nothing far too often. With you as the leader, we had a success rate of only 25%. We don't know this new guy, but he can fight, and we're betting that he'll bring us good results more often than you have!"

As the gang said this, they formed into a semi-circle and assumed battle stances. The ex-boss backed up just a little and kept his blasters at his sides, but his engine ran very roughly and his eyes were dim. He glared at MasterBlaster, but said nothing. Then he angrily turned, jumped into the air, and flew away while transforming to plane mode.

"He's probably going to try to assassinate you later," Buzz warned. "He just sees that if he attacks head-on, especially with all of us here, that he'll be scrap for the foundry."

The others agreed, but they also had other concerns. One wanted to know what the gang would be called now, while most wanted the details of the new raid MasterBlaster had promised.

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

Orbis

After General Carjack asked a few people about the new design, he was satisfied that it was, at least, as foreboding as a pony body could be. He began the flight back to the containment area, and once he was near, waited on the ground for the other government officials to finish doing their jobs.

First, the Priests of Megatron opened the cage doors of all of those who triggered their detection devices. Those ponies were directed to a big corral that had been hastily constructed out of chain-link fencing. It had a lid made of the same material. "This corral isn't so much to keep you guys in as to keep the unfaithful from sneaking in amongst you," a priest explained. "It'll also let Biological Labor and...our other division...know that you are protected."

Inside the corral, Megatron's faithful would find sparkling pure water, the finest normal-sized grains, and a pile of the best Fuji apples. Piles of fresh-smelling straw had been brought in for bedding. The priest noted that most thought it unlikely that sapient ponies usually slept on straw, but explained that it was all they could get on such short notice. "While we were able to find the best raw materials for you, we didn't have time to process or manufacture anything special," he said as he closed the gate. The few ponies in regular cages who could see what the loyalists got looked very sad. All the Ponyist ones had to sit on was the muddy ground, and all they had to eat was slightly-moldy grain from long-ignored reserve silos.

~~~~~~~~

Next, the Bureau of Biological Labor came through. There were thousands of these bots, and they came with long trailers that individual cages could be moved to without opening them. They fanned out through the rows and took the very fittest ponies. Many cried out as they were separated from family members, but the Bureau bots paid no attention to it. Occasionally, the Bureau took along a foal, not to keep it with its parents, but because it looked like it could possibly have genes that would be useful for an upcoming Approved DNA Codec for making clones.

~~~~~~~~

When Biological Labor cleared out with its captives, who would be taken about 1,000 miles away for now, General Carjack stood ready to come in with his Battalion. Suddenly, a Genocider came flying over and landed with a message: Megatron had ordered the Battalion to wait for a while.

Soon, the reason for this became apparent. Bots from the Biological Research Division arrived with a big trailer that could hold 100 cages. They quickly flew all over the containment area and made several passes before landing. Then, they went directly to specific cages that they'd spotted from the air and took those ponies - still in the cages - for new experiments and the creation of a planet-specific anti-disease patch.

As this went on, a few Decepticons informed Megatron that there were ponies showing passports and other documents and asking for their freedom. "They claim they're from various foreign governments, including Vallermoore," the soldiers said. Megatron's initial response was to laugh. Biologicals and their documents! Any idiot could make a document say anything they wanted it to; what made them think the Decepticons would give any respect to a medium like that?!

Still, on the off-chance that they were any kind of legit, Megatron ordered the claimants to be put off to the side - still in their cages - and had a few soldiers radio the Decepticon Cultural Liaison's Office to see if any nations were claiming these beings. Any who were claimed by their nations could leave, Megatron decreed, but not just yet. If they tried to leave now, they'd only get in the way of things and cause the wrong kind of chaos. Instead, those who could be verified would be put in a safe area until all of the immediate operations were complete.

Finally, Megatron was informed of the foal with the Autobot marking. Megatron went over to the cage and noted the X'd out Decepticon Seal sign that had been attached to the door. Then, he saw it. The bright red seal of the ancient enemy of the Decepticons, glaring out from the white flank of a foal who, by now, realized that he was about to be on the wrong side of the sort of response the Decepticon-marked foal was about to get earlier.

"Opposition is bad enough, but it's typical for not everyone to agree about a leader, especially a foreign one, so while I am disappointed in it, I am not surprised by it." Megatron told the youngster. "But I will never understand what would motivate someone to explicitly choose to agree with a side that not only lost, but was totally exterminated in the process. You aren't the first, and you won't be the last. But you Autobot-loving scum shall all suffer the same fate for eternity." With that, Megatron aimed his fusion cannon at the pony, who was so tiny in comparison that he could have trotted up the barrel and felt like he was in a vast tunnel while he did so. Just like an Autobot, the youngster didn't cower down in fear nor beg for his life. Instead, he defiantly shouted "Someday you shall all perish!"

And with that, Megatron fired his cannon, instantly vaporizing the pony.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, the time came. Megatron used his own magic to darken the skies forebodingly, and then he made the announcement: "Soon, you shall see the last Decepticons you will ever see!" He called out, using a P.A. system to amplify his voice across the vastness of the containment area. "Enemies of the Decepticons, meet the Genocide Battalion!"

Right after this announcement, General Carjack arrived and strode between the cages, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind exactly who he was even with his new body. In fact, since biologicals are usually genetically coded to pay the most attention to their own kinds, the ponies were even more taken aback than they would have been if he looked completely alien. Giant TVs made sure all of the others knew exactly who would soon be raining death down upon them.

Soon, Carjack reached the speaking area, and he quickly flew up and stood on top of the giant microphone Megatron had been using. "Some fool called Holy One thought that I would be weak in a form like this!" Carjack yelled dramatically. "What he didn't realize is that weakness isn't just a body issue, but also one of mindset - and there is no weakness in my mind! Behold what a pony body will do when it is being run by someone with sense and strength!"

With that, he conjured a big thundercloud and yelled out that the Genocide Battalion was claiming the ponies' souls for Leader Megatron, and in an instant, all of the ponies knew who had been blasting them with lightning before. Soon, the lightning banged down again, sending billions of watts through the metal bars and floors of the stacked, connected cages and turning their occupants to crisps. Thanks to the conductivity of the metal, each blast easily fried multiple ponies at once before fading down to non-lethal levels.

After about 5 minutes of this, the rest of the Genocide Battalion joined in. Carjack's storm was strong, but not strong enough to delete billions of captive ponies in any short order. Soon, the Genociders resorted to outright bombing the area as well as blasting because there were so many to slaughter.

Unlike during the "mopping up" of the Equestrian operation, Carjack had no qualms about deleting these captives. These had devoted themselves to a form of Ponyism that explicitly preached against the Decepticons in particular, and had gone along with the attempt to raise an alicorn without even trying to dissuade Holy One from the idea. Now, they were paying the ultimate price - and, as far as the Genociders were concerned, they deserved it.

As the slaughter commenced, the air because extremely cold, and then got so cold that the ponies who weren't yet bombed or blasted were frozen to death. Snow poured down as windigoes filled the skies by the thousands, feasting on the fear of the ponies and the hatred that filled many of the Genociders. The Decepticons paid them no mind since they had enchantment-driven heat. In fact, the most sadistic of them outright welcomed the windigoes, feeling that they just added to the overall atmosphere of doom and chaos, and enjoyed watching as their targets froze before they even had the chance to be blasted.

After only a couple of days, the job was completed. Mile after mile of ground was bombed out and covered with a carpet of dead carcasses. Soon, the air began to warm; with no more targets, there was no more hostility around to feed the windigoes and they began to disperse. Off in the distance, out of range of any damaging activity, the Megatronist ponies cheered since they knew that the silence that now covered the land meant that they would never have to fear an anti-Decepticon inquisition again.

~~~~~~~~~

Soon after, General Carjack and the other ponified Decepticon - who had a pyramid as a cutie mark, representing the fraud referred to as a pyramid scheme - approached Leader Megatron. "I had to show those fools that I could stomp them even with a pony body," Carjack said, "but now, the operation has come to an end. I'm sure you can override that idiot's spell and change me back to my normal form. I'm hoping that you will do this rather than make me go back the old-fashioned way..."

The other Decepticon, being of much lower rank, was far more obsequious. However, after saying many flattering things, he too got down to the same point. While he was a native Decepticon and had never experienced being ported, he'd heard enough about it to not want to find out.

"It's about time you asked me," Megatron said. "I'm surprised you waited this long!" Megatron had them both stand apart from each other and him at the distance that would be needed for full Decepticon bodies. Then - after secretly summoning a reporter over his internal radio - he raised his hand upward. In an instant, both Decepticons were returned to their normal states.

[Vallermoore]

Cybertron

The ex boss, one who called himself Master Full, found himself on the wrong end of a lot of abuse from the members of what had been his gang. Strong as he looked and undoubtedly was, he knew he would lose his body if he took on all the others and once, and possibly his life. He decided that flying away was the best thing to do at least for now. There would be time to catch this MasterBlaster alone, and hopefully get his revenge for being in effect deganged. "I'll be on the watch when alone," MasterBlaster told Buzz. He knew that to gain the firm support of this gang, he would need to lead them to successes that would bring in that Energon, and that pony planet without the best defences would be a good place to hit. The more successful he was as a gang leader, the more they would accept his leadership and maybe over time, even trust him. Trust was even rarer then love within the Empire, and a lot of bots had none at all. "What was the gang called under the old boss? Once I know what it was named first, it can be renamed," MasterBlaster said, and he also told them the details of the pony-owned oil refinery he planned to hit and how it's security was not as strong as some places. He hoped that this raid would do well.

*****
Orbis

The faithful Megatronists had gone through a lot of danger under the previous administration, whose secret police had been nearly as effective as Domintel, and had winkled some out and sent them to the stake and most likely the Neutral Realm at best. And they, unlike the other ponies, had been overjoyed when their God had come down and freed them from a very oppressive form of Ponyism that even religious Ponyists often found oppressive. Earth Ponies had been told repeatedly that they were only fit to be farmers or other manual laborers. This meant that they would prove to be very docile and hardworking slaves of the Decepticons. Pegasui were told they were either workers or soldiers. Most of the latter had fallen in battle already. Unicorns, being the thinkers, were only rarely selected for labour. The Megatronists thanked their liberators for the fine food and dry straw. The ponies who saw the loyalist corral sighed.
*****
When Megatron found the Autobot foal and vaporized him with his fusion cannon, the foal shouted "Someday you shall all perish!" Megatron admired bravery, even from an Autobot lover, so he let the soul wing it's way to the pony realm. "Soon, you shall see the last Decepticons you will ever see! Enemies of the Decepticons, meet the Genocide Battalion!" When General Carjack turned up, still in pony form, they were shocked. "Some fool called Holy One thought that I would be weak in a form like this! What he didn't realize is that weakness isn't just a body issue, but also one of mindset - and there is no weakness in my mind! Behold what a pony body will do when it is being run by someone with sense and strength!" The ponies found themselves fried by concentrated pony weather magic, and the rest of the Battalion joined in, blasting and bombing. Here and there unicorns fought back with magic from their horns, but could only do minor damage to the high flying battalion. It took more then a day to slaughter all the ponies, and their souls found themselves trapped in soul gems instead of moving on to the pony afterlife. Megatronism on the other planets would grow and Ponyism would wither away still further. On Vallermoore, Megatronism grew still further, mainly at Ponyism's expense. Many Muslims also came to check out Megatronism as well, as in some ways it was similar to Islam.
*****
Both General Carjack and the Genocider who had also been ponyfied were happy to have their old bodies back, especially the other Decepticon who had been truly horrified at becoming a pegasus.
*****
Loyal Star, now debugged, had a good long think about if it was worth it to delete his parents for being so sour to him earlier.

*****
The Vallermooreian Foreign Ministry was one of those who asked politely for the release of it's diplomats and the few Vallermooreian nationals who were there and had their passports.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Orbis

Once the massive slaughter was complete, Megatron contacted the Cultural Liaison's Office, which handled international diplomacy, and got the names and pictures of those who had been claimed by foreign lands. Soon, he went to the row of cages that had been set up to keep those who showed passports away from the wipeout area, and personally looked at each pony. When he recognized one as a claimed being, he released that one. They noted that he didn't bother to look at their papers, but instead used his visual matching routine to spot them from the images their nations had transmitted. The idea of documents meaning nothing was so ingrained that Megatron didn't even consider the passports.

Soon enough, his distrust of documents was proven well-founded. Ten ponies had passports but hadn't been claimed by any nations. A few of them even claimed to have come from Vallermoore. Their language, however, was the one spoken by natives of Orbis. It was clear that these 10 had forged their passports at some point prior to the invasion and had taken their forgeries with them at the time of the roundup.

"It disappoints me that you forgers have chosen not to attempt to become Decepticons," Megatron said, looking a bit sad. "Out of everyone here besides the declared Megatronists, you likely would have had the best chance. Alas, you have made your choice, and since no nation has claimed you, it was the wrong one." Megatron turned towards the place other Decepticons were milling around. "Soldier..." He gestured dismissively toward the cages while making a blasting motion with his other hand. Apparently, Megatron didn't feel that these ponies were worth more of his personal attention.

The soldier Megatron was looking at, who was one step above being an FNG, was happy to have the honor of getting a personal order from the Leader of the Decepticons himself. He proudly strode over and strafed the failed frauds with his blaster, leaving charred bodies in its wake.

Now, the legitimate passport holders were free, but most found that they now had another problem: Their ships had either been blasted or stolen by desperate would-be escapees during the chaos of the war. A few were able to take off right away and took as many passengers as they could, but the others would have to be picked up by their nations. To their shock, it was Carjack who had thought about the logistics of being trapped on a foreign world that had become very hostile. He appeared carrying strips of fabric and handed a strip to each pony. "Tie this around your upper right leg," he instructed. "This'll let other Decepticons know that you aren't to be hunted. Without it, you'll be considered a 'wild pony' - fair game for capture and enslavement. Be warned that I do know exactly how many of these I'm handing out, so don't get any ideas about trying to sneak any refugees by us!"

~~~~~~~~~~

Soon, a large contingent of troops began stamping around near where the slaves had been moved. This was alarming at first, but then it became clear that they were purposefully working to create a hard, graded surface. After a few hours of tramping, a cargo-bot appeared and dumped a bunch of asphalt from his hold as he flew low over the stamped-down area. Troops with spreading tools ran over and quickly spread it out, and after that, someone came along pushing a heavy, barrel-like contraption. Now, the entire area stank with headache- and stomachache-inducing asphalt, but by the next day, it would be ready for use as a big cargo-bot landing strip.

The next day, the cargo-bots arrived, using the strip for landing, and the slaves were divided up and forced aboard. Each bot took his load to a different spot, and there, landed on a strip similar to the one they had seen being made. The slaves were then unloaded and made to wait for orders. Troops guarded them as they waited, and any who tried to sneak away were quickly deleted. Most soon gave up on the idea of an immediate escape when they saw this!

Later, to the dismay of the unicorns and delight of the earth ponies, the Decepticons paid no mind to their old social orders, for better or worse. All were now slaves, and those who didn't obey their orders were to be terminated without hesitation. The unicorns soon found themselves ordered to use their magic to help with the clearing of the land, and in some areas, this turned out to be hard labor. The work was the hardest in areas that currently held city buildings - these were to be reduced to rubble and then the rubble was to be piled up for removal by cargo-bots and troops. Everyone who looked strong enough to do the work, regardless of type, was given an axe or a cart and told to get to it.

~~~~~~~~~~

General Carjack was glad to be back in his proper robotic body. He didn't deny that it was fun to use a pegasus one and be able to create lightning storms at will - a level of effectiveness that he hadn't had as a human - but there was nothing like the feeling of strength and genius that came from over 10 tons of metal and several petaflops of processing power.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cybertron

"The gang used to be called the Raiding Five," one said with disdain. "Like a lot of things Master Full came up with, it was fairly lame. Hopefully you can come up with something far stronger sounding! Even that guy's name...Master Full. Full of what?!" He laughed. Others chimed in, saying he was full of used oil sludge and glitches.

Far from their location, Master Full was getting out a supply of Energon Cubes. Then, he would go to the ICC store for the first time, and see if their stores were anywhere near as good as the IOPC ones used to be. He was specifically looking for a few Cubes of poisoned Energon - enough that, if he managed to sneak the stuff into his ex-gang's vault of refined Cubes, he could deactivate the entire batch for their lack of loyalty.

~~~~~~~~~

Over in a park, Loyal Star didn't have to think for long. He had been debugged, but he still wanted to delete his parents for turning on him like that! "So you only 'love' me if I agree with you!" he growled into the air. "That's not love at all! I'll show you what rot that is! I'll show you the might of the Decepticon Way, right in your faces!" With that, he went home, fueled up, and then took off to Vallermoore.

There was no "worth it or not" equation for him to consider. As a Decepticon, there were literally no downsides - and this was easy for him to calculate thanks to his improved mental capabilities. No Cybertronian would dare to look down on him for doing it, lest they be seen by DomIntel as secretly casting aspersions on Leader Megatron, several High Generals, and many others who had done the same types of things.

~~~~~~~~~

The First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

Several days after leaving, Fire Eater returned to the temple. He was very dusty and muddy thanks to his involvement in battles, walking through the tear-filled mud to find the Megatronists, and then hunting down ponies who had hidden in the woods. Soon, however, he was in his shower/waxer and enjoying a good blast of high-strength detergent. He moaned with relaxation as the waxer kicked in and gave him an automatic wax and buff. "Ahh," he thought. "This is so much better than roughing it on some mudball!"

At the next service, he was surprised to see that there were many people in the congregation that he hadn't noticed before. Ushers came up before he reached the pulpit and whispered that the new people had come from the Muslim community. Fire Eater nodded, and took this into consideration. For now, he didn't trust this new contingent. It was likely that some had come because they wanted to join Megatron in glorious jihad, looting and enslaving on other planets while spreading his religion at blaster-point, which would be good for Megatronism - but it was almost certain that at least some in the audience saw Megatronists as the infidel and Megatron as a true incarnation of Iblis. The latter would be there to, at the very least, learn about Megatronism in order to try to assault its tenets and deconvert its people. At worst, some might even try to attack the Temple and its congregation. He knew that Muslims, like Christians, actually had many different sects - but unlike modern Christians, these sects often fought each other to this day, and some were more prone to attack a "blasphemer" than others.

Fire Eater set his blaster to fully-powered and ready just in case he had a need to use it, though this couldn't be detected by onlookers. Then, he went to the podium and began his sermon.

First, he offered praise to Megatron for the outstanding result in the war against Orbis, making sure to lay it on thick about how the Divine Leader had proven his supremacy to those who would try to revive the 'obsolete' religion of Ponyism in any form and would do so again if needed. Then, he began the main part of the sermon.

"Today," he announced. "I shall talk about holy war." That got everyone's attention, as it was a departure from his usual speeches about personal mental and physical strength, how to do business as a Decepticon without ending up in jail or getting flogged, and legal ways to get revenge. After a pause, he talked at length about how the war against Orbis marked a change in the way the religion of Megatronism would be spread. "Orbis, in a nutshell, asked for it. However, it also made it clear to us how Megatronism has already spread even lightyears away. Our raiders, clandestine 'businesspeople,' and others have been spreading the Religion of Strength across the universe," Fire Eater announced. "This makes it the perfect time for us to come to some of these other planets, not with peaceful temples, but with the Decepticon Military. By eliminating those who have not come to Megatronism, we can establish planets with populations that stem completely from loyal followers - much like how the Decepticon Race sprang from the victors of the war against the Autobots...a war which also saw the elimination of those who would have otherwise produced dissidents."

He went on to say that despite many religions' claims of being peaceful, all of the big ones were actually spread through war. Thousands of years ago, old pagan religions had spread that way - there were temples to Zeus and other Earthian gods everywhere the main followers had fought wars, and later, the big Abrahamic religions had spread in the same way. Even ponyism had, in some places, been spread through war.

"Every one of the currently-extant religions that spread through war, except for ours, suffers from one thing: Doublethink. Also known as hypocrisy! In the Bible, there are many calls for peace, yet Crusaders and Conquistadors spread it through war and ran anyone who refused to convert through with their swords. In Islam, many call it 'the religion of peace,' and the concept is even in the name. Its name derives from a word meaning peace and submission. Yet, there have been many wars fought both to spread it and to attack the infidel."

"In all cases, these major religions have made big gains through war, yet have eventually lost their ability to grow further. This leaves each one with billions of followers on some worlds, yes, but none have managed to get what they really wanted, which is total domination. And one of the biggest reasons for this is that some or even most followers believe, at least in part, that they are actually supposed to be peaceful and that war is wrong." Fire Eater paused and let this sink in well.

"Megatronism will succeed where the others have failed, but not just because we have a Military made up of giant robots or several planets under our dominion. We will succeed because we do not have the hypocrisy problem! Divine Leader Megatron will not tell you to be peaceful out of one side of his mouth and then order you into war with the other! You will never face that strength-sapping confusion! In Megatronism, those who preach peace as a way of life are blasphemers and heretics, period! We shall gain total domination of the universe by conquering it, and make no mistake - that means through WAR! There is nothing metaphorical about it when we say 'war!' We mean it in its true sense: War, the kind with blasters, bombs, and conquest!" Fire Eater slammed his fist on the podium.

Fire Eater went on to say that terrorism was not what Megatronists were to do. "That is for people who don't have the support of real armies," he noted. He also greatly stressed that most terrorist acts resulted in the death or jailing of the terrorists - both of which were outcomes that were strongly condemned by Leader Megatron. "Leader Megatron does not reward the martyr, but instead, condemns him to the Realm of Punishment for purposely ruining what should have been a flawless victory!" Fire Eater stressed. "The ENEMY is to die or serve. NOT US! It matters not if you kill 10,000 infidels if you die in the process. If you die, it will be counted as a LOSS when you go to the afterlife, and if it comes out that you died in battle on purpose, you shall suffer the fate of a traitor for intentionally giving the enemy even one kill for its side!"

Then, he stressed that hostile actions were not to be taken against Vallermoore. Diplomacy, he noted, had its uses - and more importantly, Megatronism was gaining many converts here. War, while important and blessed by the Divine Leader, was a weapon meant to be used intelligently. "Save your warrior strength for the planets that are overly stubborn," he admonished them.

Finally, he invited all of the new attendees to pick up a free copy of Megatron's Speech at the Founding of the Nation and the Book of Megatronism, which explained the religion's tenets in detail. Quietly, ushers brought a table containing these books to the entry foyer so that they could be seen and taken as people left the building.

[Vallermoore]

Orbis

The Decepticons would find the vast majority of Orbian earth ponies to be excellent slaves, and very few of them tried to escape and needed to be blasted or fitted with a control chip. Whilst they were not now paid even the small amount of bits that they had been paid before, they did get the compensation of having the unicorns forced to work beside them, doing the hard work that they had so long considered beneath them. Most escape attempts were made by unicorns unable to accept that their old lives of privilege were no more, although pegasui tried to escape occasionally.

At one work site, the Decepticon in charge warned the ponies in the Pony tongue "Any unicorn refusing to work or attempting to escape and getting caught doing so or recaptured later will be dehorned for a first offence, and either put to death or fitted with a control chip for the second. And the ones that are merely executed will be the lucky ones. Being fitted with a slave chip means you may do nothing but work and have even less freedom then the other slaves. You pegasui will be dewinged for a first offence, and either put to death or fitted with a control chip for the second. And a first offence for an earth pony will be a flogging, with death or a control chip for a second offence."

"For those who do very well however, there will be apples instead of slave chow, and for those who are near-perfect slaves, I may well allow you a day or two off work. I have overseen pony slaves before, and that got the best productivity out of them. The whip by itself will only produce so much. Most owners would blast a pony for a first offence, you are lucky that I am in charge of you."

*****
The Vallermooreian ambassador and a few other very lucky ponies and humans would be allowed back to Vallermoore, as they had not tried to fight the Decepticons, were from a neutral state, and were entitled to quarter and fair treatment. Letting them go free showed that even Decepticons were capable of mercy. For now though they were trapped but marked as off limits.

*****
Had the ten forgers tried to become Decepticons, their forging skills, something very much not wanted in normal nations, would have been a plus in their favour. Being a good forger counted as a desirable quality from a Decepticon point of view; it showed the right sort of mindset for a would be immigrant. As it was, Megatron did not claim their souls as a special favour.
*****
The Genocide Battalion made the remaining bodies into fertilizer cakes before being sent back to their barracks. Genociders did get leave on occasion, but they were considered so dangerous even to the Decepticon race that they were not discharged from service in the normal way, in case they got the wrong ideas and tried to destroy Cybertronian life. A rogue Genocide Battalion running amok on Cybertron was very unlikely, but theoretically possible.
*****
Cybertron

"How about "The Best?"" MasterBlaster suggested. "Or if you think that idea is a lot of oil filter paper, I'm sure you have a few good ideas of your own." The gang had a good laugh about their ex-leader and MasterBlaster hoped to himself that his raids would bring
in the Energon, or he would himself soon be thrown out of the gang.*****

Vallermoore

The First Megatronist Temple of Vallermoore

If there were any people in the Megatronist Temple who were considering trying anything against Fire Eater, a mere look at his blasters put them off at least for now. Fire Eater made it clear how the big religions, even the despised Ponyism, had at least partly spread through war and conquest. Megatronism was honest about war; but it was no friend of terrorism and even less of suicide bombers, for which the feared Realm of Punishment awaited. A suicide was a failure and a traitor his or her soul would be treated as such, and the Realm of Punishment was not a place any soul would want to end up. For now at least, Vallermoore was off the Decepticon target list. It was slowly becoming more and more Megatronist over time. A minority of the new visitors did not return; but most of them did so and grew more and more interested. Apart from the issue of the disposal of the dead, Islam and Megatronism shared quite a few things and it was not really that big a gap between them. All the same, Fire Eater was still on his guard for trouble. Unknown to him, three of the new people were up to no good and were considering a plan for a bomb that would jam him when it went off, but making it, even in a country as pro gun as Vallermoore, was going to be a challenge. Unlike guns, bombs were most certainly illegal in Vallermoore.

*****
Loyal Star went to Vallermoore in the same way as before, as he didn't want to cause an international incident in a full size body. He decided he would knock on his parent's door again, and give them one final chance to accept him as he was, and if they refused, his android pony body's blasters would come out and he would gun them down there and then and claim their souls for Leader Megatron. He knocked on their door.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Orbis

Work, at first, proceeded slowly. Soon, however, the overseers got out their whips and made it clear that they demanded far more effort. Many sped up, even though the work load made them lose weight, but a few did their best to be slow in hopes that the slavery idea would be abandoned. A few pegusi even tried to fly away. That's when the overseer who had thought he was a nicer guy realized that his plan of dewinging the flying horses really amounted to brutal death. When he attempted to cut their wings off, they quickly bled to death while screeching in pain. Dehorning stubborn unicorns worked out better since horn material was actually made of a substance like super-condensed hair, but the unicorns so treated soon acted like they could barely see. It turned out that they had been unconsciously detecting energy fields to navigate, and now, they had to get used to relying only on their eyes.

After this sort of thing happened a few times, the Bureau of Biological Labor sent some low-level scientists over to teach the overseers what would and wouldn't work with biologicals. They informed the slavedrivers that biologicals, unlike robots, couldn't just do without parts that had grown on the main parts of their bodies. Only hooves could be trimmed - and in fact, needed it done regularly - but even that had to be done carefully.

Finally, the overseers mastered the art of being the masters of ponies rather than humans, and once all of the kinks were ironed out, the work became quite efficient. Soon after that, the ground was cleared of old buildings and rubble.

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

The ponies of Orbis were amazed when the day came that Carjack Agriculture was ready to plow. To their great relief, the company was far too impatient to wait for huge teams of slaves to till the ground. Instead, some of Cybertron's biggest cargo-bots arrived with the pieces for the company's giant disc harrows. Decepticons, whose motions clearly showed that they were highly experienced at this work, efficiently assembled the plows and the machines that would pull them. Then, none other than General Carjack himself appeared to make the ceremonial first pass over what was currently a vacant field.

When this happened, the slaves in the area were even more awed. It wasn't Carjack himself that caused this reaction, but instead, his huge 1-mile-wide plow and the giant tractor that was pulling it. Carjack looked like a speck in the cabin of this massive machine. Overseers made sure to keep their stock out of the way - anything that was plowed over would be very efficiently tilled into tiny bits and blended with the ground.

After the groundbreaking ceremony, thousands of Decepticons descended from the sky. The slaves were clearly worried and some even cried, fully expecting that the robots had come to finish the job the Genocide Battalion had been doing. It was to their great relief that these bots just fanned out, and all across the planet, took seats in other tractors and began the work of turning the entire world into a giant crop farm.

A few days later, the slaves were once again relieved when they did not have to plant the trillions of seeds all of this land would require. Instead, Carjack Agriculture took its plows off of the tractors and replaced them with automatic seeders. Again, Carjack made a ceremonial pass before letting his employees do the rest of the work.

One pony, a very brave one indeed, dared to approach Carjack as he was standing and watching some of the tilling take place. "Sir? Sir?" He called up, finally catching the general's attention. Carjack turned his head and looked down with some disdain.

"Um...um, there will still be something for us to do, won't there?" Now the pony, a light green colt with a sickle cutie mark, didn't seem quite as confident. He knew that if the answer was no, the next step would surely be to wipe out the remaining ponies.

"Oh," Carjack said after he realized that the slave wasn't about to say something obnoxious. "Yes, there will. It'll actually be easy work compared to what we usually have slaves do. You all will be weeding all of this cropland. There are chemicals that can do it for a while, but you know how biological life is. It would eventually adapt around that and grow anyway, and then I'd be stuck paying for a million Cubes' worth of research for the next round. I've found that it's far better to just have a bunch of people weed by hand. No weed has managed to evolve around the simple act of pulling it out by the roots. Even the strongest weeds start out small, and that's when you'll be gettin' 'em."

"It's a lot less work than tearing down all of that rubble. The only problem is that your graspers will get tired after grabbing so many weeds. And there will be a lot. Every day, more will sprout. They always do. It's a never-ending battle."

"Other than that, though, dirt farming is a really cush 'job.' If you can even call it a job!" Carjack sat down and beckoned the colt closer. Now, he spoke quietly. "The fact is, once the crops are well-established, you don't even have to weed anymore. You guys just look busy once that happens, pick out the occasional weed that sprouts up right next to the stem of a crop plant, and then get out of the way when it's harvesting time. A long time ago...hundreds of years ago...it actually made sense to have slaves plant seeds and pick crops. Whole economies were based on it. But now? I'd lose a lot of money using such inefficient means. Everything but the weeding is mechanized."

As he talked, the tractor operator continued plowing, and the sounds of the equipment rumbled through the air. The smell of freshly-turned soil, better than any perfume as far as Carjack was concerned, scented the air. Behind the plow, birds came seemingly from nowhere and landed to devour the many insects and orbisworms that had been uncovered.

"I wish more Decepticons enjoyed farming," Carjack said wistfully. "It's truly beautiful to get big, healthy plants from something as inert-seeming as soil. Alas, most can't appreciate the way that biological life can spring even from what is essentially a combination of finely-ground rock and partially-rotted biomass. Instead, they worry that if they defrag in a place like this, they'll wake up covered in moss."

The colt listened politely, not sure what to make of the general. One day, Carjack came with hordes of destroyers and was blasting caged ponies with lightning himself, but now, he just wanted to get crops planted and help them grow. I would love to get a look at his Debugging report, the colt thought silently, while giving a quizzical look. Carjack, seeming to pick up on the expression a bit, said, "Just don't mess with me or challenge me or the Decepticons in general. And never wake me up. Other than that, the rest is usually business. Not always, but most of the time nowadays."

Images of the Invasion of Earth flashed through Carjack's mind. That was the main time that it wasn't just business. For just a few seconds, he relived the pleasure of putting the fools, and their silly societal beliefs, and their inexplicable notions of work being noble, in the graves and in the mines, where they and their ideas belonged. "Not always," he muttered again with pleasantly-glowing eyes before turning his attention completely to the progress of the tilling.

~~~~~~~~~~

Vallermoore
The First Temple

As Fire Eater stood near the doors and shook people's hands on their way out, he was able to detect the heat, muscle tension, and even the pulse of those he contacted. Three times, he picked up a quickened pulse rate, higher body heat, and a subtle level of physical readiness. Later, after everyone but the ushers had left, he had those ushers come into his outer office. There, he jacked into a printer and printed off a picture of the three men.

"I don't know what these idiots are up to, but it's something," he warned. "Make sure to scan them extra-carefully if they come back. I know that scanning has been more lax lately since that cult didn't end up actually trying anything, but be sure to be on your guard now. Also, remember that Islam does Market Share Protection. While we Cybertronians think their methods are crude compared to our own, that doesn't mean that they're completely ineffectual. The laws of physics, after all, do not care if they wreck their own flawless by losing a guy or two along with a lot of ours."

Suddenly, Fire Eater got an idea and his eyes glowed shystily.

"The next time they come in, make sure to mutter, 'we claim your souls for Leader Megatron' at each one of those guys. Do it any time they show up. Make it look like it's just a standard Temple thing that we do."

"I'm not sure about it, but it's likely that they will have to say some kind of prayer or maybe perform a cleansing ritual to clear that. Until they do that, they won't want to get themselves killed out of fear that they won't be able to reach Jannah. As for whether or not it would actually affect their souls? Likely not. If my guess is right, they are firmly declared to Allah, and Allah doesn't just let someone jump the line, so to speak. Otherwise it'd be way too easy for his enemies to win. But the important thing is that THESE GUYS will probably think it'll have an affect. And that may be all that's needed to keep them from doing anything to us - or at least, anything that'd get them killed in the process."

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

Loyal Star, having steeled his nerves, knocked on the door of his old home. To his surprise, the lawn looked like it hadn't been mowed in a month. The house itself had a new paint job, but instead of being done properly, it had been done horribly and made the place look awful. Where paint was supposed to be, it was already peeling; but where it wasn't supposed to be, drips had fallen and had soaked in, maintaining their positions forever in a perfect example of Murphy's Law.

He heard his father's voice from inside: "If that damn 3,000-chingching ripoff painter wasn't bad enough luck, now that devil-worshipper we once called our son has the gall to knock on this door!"

His mother's voice said something in response, and while it didn't sound as mean, it was too soft to make out the words. After that, his father's voice became too soft to make out the words too, but it retained its hardness.

After several moments, one thing became clear: The door wasn't going to be opened.

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

Cybertron

"The Best?" The other gang members smiled, but shook their heads. "Not unless we want to be challenged by every bigger gang on Cybertron," came the response. "And there are a lot of bigger and more powerful gangs than us!"

This was followed by many suggestions, but everything related to oil or its removal had already been taken by some other gang. Names related to trade were similarly booked, and more importantly, such names were more associated with gangs who did broad-based activities. If they were to come up with a good name, they would have to think about it for a while.

[Vallermoore]

Orbis

The bot who dewinged several ponies did not intend to kill them, and therefore decided to let their souls go free to the pony afterlife rather then claiming them for Leader Megatron. He didn't really know until the scientists told him how biological life worked. With robotic life such as a sapient CPU, things could be removed and added for the most part without causing pain let alone death. Even if for example a bot was badly wounded, something like bleeding to death was unheard of. Soon enough Orbis was one huge crop farm. Most of that food was to feed slaves, although some Decepticon immigrants liked eating and trading was also a possibility. Here and there a few ponies were having sex in secret, and ponies were becoming pregnant.

*****
Vallermoore
The First Temple

Fire Eater, unknown to this would be terrorist cell, was aware of the members before they had even seriously planned everything. Just blasting them could easily cause unwanted trouble with the Vallermooreian authorities, who whilst they gave the Temple a lot of leeway, could not really be expected to overlook blatant murders. And to inform on them to the police would be an unthinkable breach of the Decepticon Way, and even worse if it was a Priest of Megatron doing it. By claiming their souls for Leader Megatron, at least for now, it stopped their plans in their tracks. They had considered blowing themselves up with a bomb with some sort of EMP device inside, but thoughts of the Realm of Punishment now put them off until they could think of some plan to protect their souls.
Had they thought about it properly, they would have realized that Allah didn't like terrorism much either and was unlikely to allow them into heaven if they carried out their nasty little plots.

Whilst it was still far from being the number one religion of Vallermoore, Megatronism was growing and swelling all across Vallermoore. Ponyism was surviving, but only as a cult that had lost most of it's members to other religions. Islam was still strong, but was shrinking, losing a surprisingly large number of members to Megatronism. Christianity had taken Ponyism's place as the leading religion of Vallermoore, and as Megatron had found, taking on the Christian God needed a lot of troops, a solid portal, and proper logistics to bring Energon to the troops and stop angels from exploding said Energon before it reached them. Megatronism was now the fifth largest religion in Vallermoore, which was a glorious success. And it was starting to have a subtle political effect too.

*****
Cybertron

"How about "The Hand?" suggested MasterBlaster. "Because when we want something we just go out and grab it? Feel free to suggest ideas of your own, this affects all of us." Deep inside his mind boards, he was thinking A gang-I have my own gang now! And if I can keep them happy with successful raids, they will keep me as their leader. In a way, the Decepticon Nation is a gang, with Megatron as it's leader. Ultimately, he rules in the same way as a gang leader. Because he was just thinking this, Domintel did not find out about it. They could find out everything spoken and just about everything written on Cybertron, but unless they were actually taking someone in for questioning, they wouldn't know what was in the mind boards. And it was pointless and in fact dangerous to just randomly pull in bots who were both doing and plotting nothing wrong. Random arrests for nothing were a sure way to risk rebellion, the very thing they were there to prevent.

*****
Vallermoore

Loyal Star activated his pony body's blasters and blasted his way in with ease. "You call me a devil worshipper? Megatron has given me immortality!" And he blasted away at his unloving parents with glee.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Vallermoore
First Temple

Fire Eater read the latest reports on stated religious affiliations with a satisfied, yet still ambitious, smile. Ponyism was fading fast without any gods, and Megatron's takeover of Orbis had ensured that no interlopers would be rising any time soon, at least not from anywhere known to the Decepticons. Muslims had also been joining quickly, with the men mostly being lured by Megatronism's openly warlike nature and the women being eager to shed ancient gender-based restrictions.

Christianity was an annoying holdout. Though it and Islam had faith in the same God, and Megatron and his forces had seen groups from each religion in Yahweh's Heavenly Realms, Christianity had a vastly different view of its leader and focused its attention on the pacifistic teachings of Jesus rather than the rock-em-sock-em teachings of Mohammed. This was very nettlesome to the Decepticons. They couldn't go and kill this Jesus guy because he had already been killed once and the end result was that he came back like a rubber check and this caused his religion to strengthen even more. Plus, his whereabouts were currently unknown - the last time he was reported seen was 2300 years prior!

Yet, Christ had managed to maintain faithful loyalists and his religion had withstood centuries of atheists demanding proof - and not getting any. Atheists had shot every possible hole into its canon and unofficial lines, yet it stood anyway. Fire Eater realized that even if Megatron did manage to barge into Heaven and kill Yahweh himself, Christianity would likely remain. After all, no one would know about a heavenly war or its outcome until they were already dead, and this would do no good for Megatronism.

Fire Eater thought through a number of scenarios. Say that people don't need saving? Already tried by atheists and Satanists with no luck. Debunking was constantly being tried by atheists...still no luck. Preaching that Christianity was a religion that not only excused weakness, but made it a tenet? Fire Eater himself had tried that, and while he'd convinced a few so-called Christians to switch, those people had such low loyalty toward Christianity that they surely would have defected to something else - or nothing - at some point all on their own. Claiming that it'd be far easier to get into the Decepticon Realm of Pleasure since most of the Ten Commandments were anathema to Decepticons? That didn't work either; Christian preachers easily claimed that this was actually a ticket to Hell.

The High Priest of Vallermoore leaned back in his chair and his engine made what was almost a sighing sound. One day, Megatron will just order us to kill them all, he thought to himself. Only our diplomatic relations with the government of Vallermoore are keeping the Genociders away.

~~~~~~~~~~~

A Once-Proud House

The effects of Megatron's curse hadn't stopped with the lawn - left to grow by someone who took the landscape contract money and disappeared - or the paint, which was done by some conniver who charged 3,000 chingchings and then gave a random kid 10 chingchings and a can of cheap paint to do the actual work. As Loyal Star bucked the door down, its new lock, claimed to be one of the most secure brands in the country, easily gave way and let him in.

Loyal Star's parents stood with mouths agape as he barged in and complained about being called a devil worshipper. They expected to have a chance to say something in response to his claim that Megatron gave him immortality - perhaps to try to claim that it somehow wasn't real, despite his easily-repairable robotic body - but they had no such chance. He yelled "Now your souls belong to Megatron!" and opened fire. As soon as his blasts made contact, they were roasted horse meat.

After taking a few moments to collect himself, Loyal Star began to look around the house. He took some books, video games, and puzzles that he had left behind, and intended to leave right away. As he walked by the dining room table on his way out, however, he noticed a stack of stern-looking envelopes. Closer examination showed that they were mostly bills of the overdue variety, and each made threats about what would happen if payment was not made. Most notably, he noticed a letter from the bank that held the mortgage on the house. It was a legal notice stating that foreclosure was imminent if an overdue balance was not paid. A wrinkled, and possibly tear-stained, letter from the bank showed an overdraft of over 1,200 chingchings. Now curious, Loyal Star looked for more bank records and found that the family's 1,000,000 chingching balance had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared three months prior.

"The wrath of Megatron is terrifying to behold." A voice came from behind him. When he turned around, he saw only a black cat. It jumped lithely up onto the table, and since it was in private now, it gave a little rev to let Loyal Star know that it was actually a ForIntel agent.

"Megatron caused all of these money problems?" Loyal Star asked, waving a hoof at the bills and overdraft notices.

"Yes. After those ponies rejected you the first time, I asked Megatron to curse them. Since then, all of their money disappeared in a bank snafu, and all of their reserve funds were scammed out of them by an amazing variety of Vallermoorian crooks. I'm sure you noticed the bad paint job and even worse lock installation? We of ForIntel didn't do any of those things. The curse magically drew crooks from all over, and also caused an incompetent to get hired at the bank." The 'cat' purred, seemingly unconsciously, as it thought of all of the destruction it had seen befall the cursed couple.

"Frankly, if you hadn't come back and finished the job, I'm sure that the effects of the curse would have killed them sooner or later. After all, with effects like that, any little medical problem would have become an opening for massive treatment mistakes to be made." It purred more. "Divine Leader Megatron will be pleased that you did what you needed to do by yourself, though. As someone on track to become a priest, you need to be a living example of the Decepticon Way - and it is not the Way to let oneself be treated like they were treating you without delivering fatal retribution."

"Rest assured in your knowledge of this: Megatron is NOT a devil, nor is he the devil. He can bless just as well as he can curse. Also, it's typical for fundamentalists to consider everyone who opposes their religion to be some sort of devil. They believe that without even giving it true conscious thought. Unfortunately, this leads them to become irrationally hostile when their opinions are challenged."

As the agent talked, he paced around exactly like a real cat would. If someone had walked in unannounced, they would have never suspected that this "cat" had been the one talking. After a while, the agent jumped down and sauntered out the door, his cat tail high in the air. Someone outside might think that he'd been given a big bowl of sardines or something else extremely yummy to a cat, but Loyal Star knew that the agent was happy about the correct execution of the Decepticon Way.

~~~~~~~~~

Orbis

When pregnant mares were discovered, they were allowed to give birth. The Biological Labor Division, however, was immediately informed. Soon, it had produced a billion shots of a sterilizing medicine and gave every single pony - adult or foal - a dose of it. There would be no more natural births now, and instead, all new foals would come from the Cloning Centers that would be set up.

Foals from the Cloning Centers would be sent to new Education Centers, where they would learn a very involved, but almost entirely fictional, version of history. They would never be allowed into the same areas as older ponies, and therefore, would never meet anyone who would tell them that once, Orbis was something other than the Decepticons' agricultural world.

The education of those who were the last natural births, on the other hand, was debated for a short time. It was decided that they would be allowed to stay with their parents since there were so few of them. The parents and the foals here were lucky - if it was a hard labor world, at least some overseers would have summarily rendered the foals and then chipped the parents to force them to work despite their despair. Here, however, there was only one overall order concerning the youngsters, and it came from General Carjack: "Keep those damn crying kids away from me!" Everyone made sure to carefully obey this order, lest the foals be massacred in a noise-induced berserker rage.

Cybertron

The gang members nodded, but even though the name was okay, it still didn't strike them as powerful enough. "The Hand is a good start, but it's not fear-inducing," Haula noted.

"How about the Fist?" Buzz said. "That gives an entirely different feeling than the mental image of an open hand. And a fist is also the shape a hand makes right after you grab something." The others began making fists along with some tough poses. "Yes, the Fist! A force to be reckoned with, that also grabs stuff! Don't you agree, MasterBlaster?"

One thing MasterBlaster didn't have to worry about was what DomIntel would have thought of his thoughts. Megatron had proudly and publicly referred to himself as the leader of the universe's biggest raid gang on more than one occasion. He would quite enjoy such an acknowledgement being spontaneously made; to him, that meant that things were working out exactly as he'd intended.

The Megatron Mansion

Megatron seemed to be relaxed and playing Conquer the Universe, but his system instantly picked up that one of his curses had stopped drawing any power from him. He used his multithreading to put some attention onto that as he continued to play. Soon, he saw that his curse of Loyal Star's parents was no longer needed because they had been deactivated. He smiled, seeing that Loyal Star had done the work. The former pony would make a good priest indeed - Megatron wouldn't have to worry about him having too many qualms to do the job right.

Soon after, he went to the Temple of Lost Souls, and to his pleasure, he found two newly-filled gems. "You shall power the Main Foundry," he said to the glowing stone-like containers. He took them there and set them up under the Main Pit, where a small pilot light ensured that they would remain in enough pain - and try hard enough to get away from it - to produce plenty of power for the big burner that kept the metal boiling.

As he walked away, a thought crossed his mind. Pony souls that hadn't been claimed for him were still going somewhere else. Perhaps, he thought, it would be a good idea to invade wherever that was and claim ALL of the souls for himself...