Judgement

Judgement is a short story that was written by DRJ on June 23rd, 2014. It is the conclusion of the Dirge-centred subplot in the original RPG.

Summary
Still in jet form, Dirge returned to the space station above Liquid-Metallicon that housed the Neo-Uterian forces he had done battle with. Once inside, he transformed back into robot mode and accessed the mainframe computer. He downloaded the station's database into his mind before purging the information from the computers, leaving no trace of him or any terrorists ever being there. When he searched through the information he had stored, he found that a high-ranking general in the Corrantian army by the name of Raskulinecz had been supplying weapons to the Neo-Uterians, including Nominet. Intending to track him down, Dirge left the station in jet mode and flew to Corrantia. After an hour of searching, he finally located Raskulinecz's log cabin, blew the door to bits and stormed into his bedroom. He found the general in bed with a young woman, who pulled the sheets up to cover themselves as Dirge sneered at Raskulinecz and told him to put his clothes on.

Once he had gotten dressed, Dirge questioned Raskulinecz about his involvement with the Neo-Uterians. Raskulinecz tried to lie at first, but Dirge saw through it so the general ended up admitting to his crime. He said that he had been coerced into selling the weapons by a User, and that he didn't know what the Neo-Uterians would do with them once they had them. Dirge realized that it was the Architect who had done this, and therefore put a major city in danger. He also deducted that the Architect must have had a way of communicating with Raskulinecz at all times in case something went wrong, so he began looking for traces of User tech. When it became clear that a nearby mirror doubled as a communication device, Dirge spoke into it, informing the Architect that he holds him responsible for the crimes he had committed, before smashing it with his fist. Dirge then left the house and flew away to parts unknown.

In the User HQ, the Architect calmly crossed Raskulinecz's name out in his notebook. It is revealed that his plan was to secure the Neo-Uterians' co-operation by supplying them with a false copy of the ZFT book, and then getting Raskulinecz to work with them. By sending Dirge to investigate, he hoped he would have exposed the conspiracy (while Thunderwing would kill anyone who knew the truth), and the Corrantian government would find itself in hot water, having been seen helping Neo-Uterians. It would have been a huge blow to HYDRA if Thunderwing had shot Nominet in the head with the first shot and not allowed him to talk. The Architect cursed his losses, and thought about what to do next.