Lore drop or something idk
Custom FOC/IDW mix
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Grimlock was once a gladiator, one who never learned when to stop fighting. A living tank, all momentum and fury. The roar of his engines thundered through the pits, echoing off stone and steel as the crowd screamed for blood. It was there, beneath harsh lights and watching optics, that his name became something more than a designation. It became a legend.
That power did not go unnoticed.
A rising mech took interest, one bold enough to challenge Cybertron’s corrupt government, one who promised revolution instead of submission. They called him Megatron.
Megatron had begun a movement. The Decepticons. A force meant to tear control from the hands of the elite, to end a system that treated its people like disposable parts in a grand machine. He offered Grimlock a place among them.
Grimlock accepted.
For a time, he fought as a Decepticon. But slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, doubt crept in. Small things. Orders that lingered too long in his spark. Actions that felt wrong. Regret followed close behind.
Eventually, Grimlock made his choice.
He tore the Decepticon insignia from his chest and deserted.
Megatron’s fury was immediate. He sent his newest enforcer, Tarn, after him.
Tarn never stood a chance. He left the encounter missing half his face.
Grimlock disappeared into the Primal Vanguard, a place where strength could still mean something worthwhile. It was there he met another tank, volatile, perpetually drunk, and always one insult away from a brawl. Slag. Grimlock admired the temper. He saw potential in it. He offered Slag a place on a team he was quietly assembling.
Over time, within the Vanguard’s ranks, that team took shape. They called themselves the Dynobots.
They were given the worst assignments, the dirtiest, most brutal missions imaginable, because no one else could survive them. Grimlock’s name spread again, carried alongside theirs, until both became something close to myth.
Then came Torraxxis.
A routine mission. A cave system. Nothing remarkable, until it was. What truly happened below the surface was never fully recorded. All that is known is this: Skar, their medic, was killed. And the Dynobots emerged changed, twisted into ravenous, cannibalistic beasts.
What remained of the team scattered. They ran. They vanished.
Much later, during a violent skirmish, the Dynobots drew the attention of Optimus Prime. He researched their history, their condition, and found something unexpected beneath the destruction, pity. He wanted to help.
Grimlock refused.
They fought instead.
Optimus prevailed, restraining Grimlock even in his monstrous state, forcing him down from the edge of feral rage. Reluctantly, furiously, Grimlock agreed to accept help. Once.
Wheeljack examined them and uncovered the source of their corruption: unstable Energon coursing through their systems. It was purged. The worst of the madness was gone. The rage remained, but tempered. Focused. Their monstrous alt-forms persisted, but were at least partially under control.
The Dynobots joined the Autobots soon after, though they kept their name, and Grimlock kept command.
In the war, their reputation grew sharper than ever. Decepticons learned to fear the sound of them coming.
That fear attracted attention.
Shockwave, ever the scientist, became fascinated by their altered forms. Rage, power, transformation, he saw inefficiency begging to be corrected. Control begging to be imposed.
He captured them. Insecticons in swarms overwhelmed even the Dynobots.
What followed were long, agonizing cycles of experimentation. Their bodies were dismantled while they lived, suspended by cables like marionettes. Grimlock remembered every moment, every wire threaded into his frame, every panel torn free, every blade cutting deep.
He remembered.
They were remade again, this time into towering, fanged creatures of another world. Dinosaurs. Fire-breathers. Grimlock had always carried heat in his spark, a simmering ember of fury. Now it was real. Tangible.
And disturbingly… natural.
With the accidental assistance of an incompetent seeker named Starscream, Grimlock broke free, and freed his brothers.
Now bearing the name Dinobots, Grimlock led them on a path carved from rage and destruction. The torture had shattered something inside him. Memory fueled madness.
Eventually, he was captured again. This time alone.
Grimlock was imprisoned on Garrus Nine, separated from his team. They believed isolation would stabilize him.
It didn’t.
The prison fell. Grimlock vanished.
For cycles, there was nothing. No sightings. No reports. Then, years later, he reappeared. Amnesiac. Broken in quieter ways.
Somehow, he had aligned himself with his former enemies: a Decepticon-affiliated group known as the Scavengers. He could barely speak. Could barely think. But he could still fight, though his movements were different now. Less brutal. More instinctive.
Against all expectations, they helped him remember who he was.
And he didn’t kill them for it.
I suspect he has a soft spot for them.
In the end, Grimlock walked away from the Dinobots, leaving them to live their own lives. He chose solitude. Chose to find his own path, wherever it might lead.
— END DATALOG ENTRY
