“Okay. What do we need to do?”
Forcep climbs up onto the walker.
“Come up here and have a seat!” he calls down to the Splitter brothers.
The brothers climb up and follow him.
On the platform were several unoccupied operating tables amidst the shelves and tanks containing weapons and body parts.
Facelift plugs the datacard into a console, bringing up the designs for the Splitter brothers’ modifications again. The cyclops puzzles over them again.
“…You can do that…?” he mumbles, eyeing a diagram of a certain, complex procedure.
“…Huh; why didn’t I think of that before…?” he says to another.
The Splitter brothers took their places on the tables.
Facelift moves the diagrams to the side as he taps on the console again. Stasis Lock begins to befall the Splitter brothers.
“Alright, you three,” the cyclops says, eager to begin. He saw the new information being presented to him as a challenge. “Let’s take a stab at this and see if we can get that gestalt of yours working again, why don’t we?”
Thrust rolls his eyes, while the other two nod, before they fall into Stasis Lock.
Facelift drifts between each of the operating tables and the diagrams on the console as he performs the operation according to their instructions, occasionally enlisting the aid of his assistants when needed. Working on combiners was challenging enough, but Facelift was entering uncharted territory, using techniques that, for the last hundred million years, had been lost to history. He works quickly, but with a level of caution unusual for the cyclops.
A timeskip later, Facelift brings the Splitter brothers out of stasis lock, having finished his work.
“Okay,” he sighs, worn out from a substantial period of ceaseless work, “if I read the lady’s directions right, that should do it. You should be able to combine again.”
Thrust, Vigor, and Lightshift looked at each other.
“…I don’t feel any different.” Vigor grunts first.
The three stand up.
“Well, should we try it?” Thrust asks.
Facelift eagerly nods his head, his eye bobbing up and down.
“Uh, yeah, please do!” he implores the three. “I wanna see if it actually works!”
“Okey dokey.”
The three transform, smoothly combining into a larger mech, about one-and-three-quarters the height of an average Cybertronian.
The gestalt looked down at itself, examining its hands and body.
Connected to its back was a large crescent shape, not quite part of his body, but a sort of shield attached.
Facelift stifles an ecstatic squeal as his eye widens and he scrapes his hands together.
“Ha-ha!” he both triumphantly and maniacally laughs. “I did it! I actually did it!”
“…I did it, right?” he asks the newformed gestalt, just to be certain. “Everything fitting together properly? All the individual personalities syncing up? You’re not gonna fly into a mania-fueled rage and start tearing up the ship, are you?”
The gestalt, Split, looked down at Facelift.
“I have a hankerin’ for some fresh energon.” He growled at Facelift.
“Good time for a snack.” He took a cautious, unsteady step towards Facelift, intentionally, stomping down slightly harder than normal.
Facelift assumes that the ‘snack’ in question was him.
“Oh, well… darn,” he says resignedly. He pulls out his cannon.
“Guess I’ll just have to scrap you and try again.”
Split paused and stepped back, this time much more smoothly, holding his hands up.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I was just messing with you.”
Facelift quickly stows his cannon.
“Phew!” he sighs, pretending to wipe sweat off his brow.
“I-I knew that,” the cyclops lies, unconvincingly. From behind Split, his one-winged assistant scoffs and rolls her eyes.
Split extended his hand to Facelift.
“Thank you. Now I can finally get revenge on that warlord piece of slag Bludgeon.”
A bit dazed, he followed along, sure to not fall behind.
Facelift stares at the hand for a moment, before awkwardly placing one of his talons in Split’s palm.
“That’s the spirit, buddy,” the cyclops says.
Split shakes the talon gently.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to test me… capabilities.”