“We need you to finish the combination retrofit,” Downburst explains.
“Shockwave had plans to make these five into a combiner team, but in his absence we’ve been at a loss as to how to complete the procedure. Thunderblast seems to be under the impression that we could use your work to fill in the gaps, so to speak.”
“I need access to their brain modules to do that. Combining is not only a physical process, but also a psychological one.”
SideStep turned to them and pointed his fingers at his eyes, then the two scientists.
“I’ll be back.”
He transformed and drove to the final location. [quote=“Chromeharpoon, post:6074, topic:49995”]
“Indeed,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■ agrees. “I prefer my enemies in plain sight and in firing range, myself.”
[/quote]
“Same here, sir.” SideStep agrees.
“Oh…you did?” King-Quan asked, raising his metal eyebrow. “How were they?”
Downburst gestures to the predacons on the tables behind Wildsong.
“Have at them,” he says. “It’s why you’re here, after all, as I’ve stated.”
Brainpan was pushing New Decepticon surgeons aside, practically drooling over the clones. Each one was a large and mighty beast, and would be formidable assets to Bludgeon’s forces when complete.
As SideStep drove down to Engineering, he’d be able to see that Salvation had exited transwarp. Crew members were flocking to viewports to catch a glimpse at their destination.
“Hm. Good to find another kindred spirit aboard,” ■■■■■■■■■■■■ remarks.
“How you’d expect, mostly,” Topside replies. “Like the combaticons, but less… stable, I guess.”
Behind Topside, the transwarp drive shuts down, its rings grinding to a halt as the light leaves its conduits. Greasemonkey excuses himself to stride over to its controls.
Song sighed.
“Fine. I’ll see everything I can do.”
She seemed way less enthusiastic about working on her very first team of combiners than everybody else would have expected.
Downburst doesn’t pick up on this, and neither do Brainpan and the other scientists around the predacons.
“Excellent,” Downburst says.“I’ll leave you to it.”
With that, the triple-eyed transformer departs, leaving Wildsong to proceed as she saw fit. The scientist stare at her, awaiting her lead; with Downburst off to oversee other matters, she was effectively in charge of the group.
“So… Uhm… Which is the most completed one so far?”
One scientist walks over to the troll-looking, bipedal predacon.
“Specimen Two,” she names it. “Designation: Blot.”
Blot lays on its stomach, comatose and held down by thick clamps gripping its arms and legs. Its midsection had been pried open, and its legs detached.
“Oh my… That’s complete?”
“Well, you caught in the middle of augmentation,” the scientist points out in a deadpan. “I was just about to tune this thing’s T-cog before you and your… assistant-”
She casts a disdained look (laced with a touch of apprehension) in Brainpan’s direction. Brainpan excitedly waves back at her.
“-barged in.”
Blight took the blow, but as he stumbled back, his arms swung forward in an incidental attack.
Around Blight (@ToaNoah_Wafflemeister) , Redstocker (@Toa_Vladin) , Scorchlock (@MichaelBT-7474) and company, the technicians in hangar twelve, along with the twins and the pair of guards, had stopped to stare out the yawning aperture as Salvation approaches OL-2006-2-C.
“Look at that…” Tumble breathes, pointing a blocky finger at the ancient glyphs and ring-shaped patterns carved into the planet’s surface, emitting a deep verdant glow that stood out amidst the blanket of lighter shades of green.
Hangar twelve’s Allspark hologram flickers as strings of cyberglyphs float around the nebulous orb representing Primus’ spark, as a halo of green wraps around it.
“Alright, let’s start with the basic. Do they all have functional voice boxes?”
He would accidentally punch Delta in her face, before she would raise her arms in the air and would attempt a Hulk-smash motion.
The scientist indicates the predacons with a sweeping gesture.
“They’re animals, lady. They roar and scream a-plenty, but if you want to have a thought-provoking discussion on the meaning of life, you’re slag outta luck.”
“Wait, aren’t we also trying to engineer robots mode into them?” she asked, genuinely confused. “As in, robot mode, beast mode and then combined mode? They would be a heck of a lot easier to control this way.”
“Don’t need to,” the scientist says. She flicks her wrist, and an array of violet holo-screens fade into being above the predacons.
“Turns out these things all have robot modes already. Though I suspect we won’t get much use out of them. Shockwave was under the impression that their primitive minds would prefer their beast modes.”
Brainpan hovers over the predacons, studying their physiology, which differed from that of a standard cybertronian. Many elements were similar, but others had more in common with various mechanimal species.
“I think I want to try to give them voice boxes, at least to the big one, the red and white one, and then we’ll see what happens.”
“Go for it,” the scientist says, though she obviously considered it a fruitless endeavor.
“And see about its metabolism while you’e at it. The d*mn thing’s a glutton; needs to refuel itself every couple of hours.”
“Everything at its time. Now, uhmm… Does anybody have any voice box?”