Transformers Prime: Convergence is a plot and character-development driven roleplay forum based upon canon material of TFP and RiD, but incorporates characters, elements, and plotlines from various other continuities to craft a unique story. Our community is welcoming, laid back, and dedicated to making each roleplay experience a good one.
Transformers Prime: Convergence is in no way affiliated with Hasbro, and copyrights and trademarks (including names, images, etc.) are held by their respective owners. All original content remains the property of individual writers and artists. Main header banner, board graphics, and theme by Counterklock.
Characters: Toolbox, @fixit , any Autobots Location: Autobot Scrapyard Content Warnings: References to slavery, physical abuse, and death. Plot Summary: After many, many days of searching, and using the very last of his strength, a weary and frightened traveller arrives on the doorstep.
It had been days since he’d escaped so called ‘Decepticon Island’, a section of the Alchemor upon which Toolbox had been assigned which had crash-landed in the middle of a lake after the ship had broken apart in the atmosphere. Escape had been no easy feat, and each step of the journey had been fraught with danger and fear of being caught and shot through the spark casing as so many of his brethren had been when they’d dared to stand up to their Decepticon overseers.
But he had to find the Autobots. He knew in his spark that there were Autobots here in this strange and primitive world, even if he had not managed to find any trace of them yet. Besides, he’d heard tell of an enemy base not far from where he had been held captive… and so with the very final scrap of bravery and daring left in his beaten frame, Toolbox had escaped. No other minicon had escaped, or if they had, none of them were heard from ever again, and he knew the odds were not in his favor. But by some miracle, perhaps the grace of Primus himself, he had gone undetected as he’d snuck aboard a craft that went to the mainland, and zipped as fast as his poor beaten tires would carry him. He had not stopped until he had been certain he’d rolled far enough away that it would be safe for him to slow.
Toolbox had quickly worked out that ‘not far’ had been a subjective expression, for once he’d gotten away he’d gotten hopelessly lost. For days he wandered, skittishly avoiding native life forms and flinching at any loud sound, fearful that a Decepticon had finally come to take him back into slavery. The inhibitor collar hung around his neck like a grim reminder of his terrible plight, but nothing he did had ever managed to make the locking mechanism budge, but it also served to make him remember all that could yet be lost if he did not successfully find his fellow Autobots. The fate of his brethren, his fellow minicon guards, rested upon his scuffed orange shoulders, and he knew he could not fail.
Days and days, and finally his desperate search paid off.
It was a human establishment, a scrapyard that seemed more like a garbage dump what with the piles and piles of things he saw peeking over tall walls, but his sensors pinged his HUD with the many Autobot signatures within the compound. Toolbox wanted to weep with joy, and relief, as he slowly rolled his way up the dirt road to the gates. It had been so long since he’d seen a friendly face. WHat would they think of him, a guard who had so easily been overcome by the prisoners he’d been meant to subdue? What would they think of him, knowing how easily he’d been collared? Would they care for the plight of his people?
Toolbox still had one tiny iota of hope that they would. Even if he dropped dead from exhaustion and energon depletion, at least his death would not be in vain, for now someone would know what had truly happened.
With one tired, wary, scuffed up servo, he weakly knocked.
“Please… help me...!”
With the last of his strength spent, the poor minicon lost consciousness, and fell forward flat on his face.
The alarm bells had startled Fixit, but he had leaped to attention almost immediately. He would turn on the security cameras first of all in order to see over the other side. It was something that both Denny Crane had insisted on and he had agreed to almost immediately. It was an essential part of a security detail to be able to have a visual outside just in case. On the screen of his control panel was...
"SWEET SOLUS PRIME!" He cried out, seeming to wheel down in a hurry, pressing a button on his array to trigger remote gate access so he could rush to the gate. There was a Mini-Con of the same model as he himself! And judging from the voice, in very bad shape from some sort of attack or torture. He rushed closer, as fast as his little wheels could carry him, crying out with sadness.
A hard day's work meant a well deserved nap, and that's exactly what Grimlock had had in mind for the time being. He'd helped search for pods, as well as the escaped Decepticon fugitives, and to be honest he was terribly exhausted. The Dinobot had been curled up in his Dinobot form, tail wrapped in a way that he'd resembled a giant cat taking a long nap. Primus help anyone who told him he slept like that at times though. Cats were terrifying! Just the thought of sleeping the same way as one would give him the creeps.
It'd been about an hour into his nap that the alarm sounded, jolting him straight out of his stasis nap. His head shot into the air, frantically looking around. "Huh?! What?! What's goin' on?!"
Once the green mech was up, he transformed into his root mode, quickly rushing to the gate, catching Fixit in the meantime. "Oh, if it's a 'Con, I'm ready to do some punchin'.." As if to add to the dramatic effect, Grimlock promptly punched his fists together, watching carefully as the Mini-Con opened the door to find.. another Fixit? Oh, Primus this was about to get confusing. Grimlock looked to the injured Mini-Con, then to Fixit, back to the Mini-Con, then back to Fixit. Sadly, the injured Mini-Con wasn't Fixit.
Fixit was practically in pristine condition compared to the minicon that lay in the dust at the gate. Poor Toolbox had many scuff marks on his chassis, as well as large dents and several bits of paint that had chipped off. There was also a layer of grit and muck that coated him like a testament to his long travels and an added insult to injury. Indeed, he was in very bad shape due to the mistreatment at the hands of his captors.
He stirred at the sound of a familiar voice. There was a minicon here... one of his brethren? It took all of his strength to lift his head to look, and several moments for him to process the blurry orange shape that huddled over him. The other minicon finally came into focus, and with a long blink, Toolbox noticed he did not have an inhibitor collar like any of the others he’d had to leave behind.
“You’re… you’re free?” he asked, as if he could hardly believe what he was seeing, before comprehension finally dawned on him, and his weary little face lit up like a light. “Did I find the Autobot base? Did I really find you?”
And then his optics focused upon the green-and-yellow-and-blackish blur that leaned over him. It took him a little bit longer to comprehend just what that blur was, but when he did, Toolbox let out a shriek of pure terror, and scrambled away. It wasn’t very effective, for he had very little energy left, and the most he managed to accomplish was some vague squirming motions.
Grimlock's reaction, of course, startled Fixit. He hadn't been expecting that Grimlock was going to get startled that easily. He would look up to the large dinobot with what seemed to be pursed lips, then sputtered. "C-c-c-calm down Grimlock! I already let the camera systems pick up on everything!" That was the advantage of having the camera systems set up like he'd asked of Denny Crane. Being able to spot his fellow Mini-Con was just one of the many blessings.
His vocals hitched at the sight of his fellow caretaker. He then looked up to Grimlock. "I...wish I had more of my memory banks, but yes, he is familiar." He seemed to sigh softly with worry afterward. There was definitely more to this situation than meets the eye, and definitely more to it than the trick that Russell had shown him involving using steel wool and a nine-volt battery to start a fire.
"I am. And you did!" He then squeaked with worry. "It's okay...it's okay. Grimlock is a friend. He's been helping me. He's not a bad mech. I swear on my spark."
Grimlock merely blinked at Fixit a few times as the small Mini-Con told him to calm down. Given that he had just awoken, and had nearly had a spark attack in the process due to the manner that had awoken him, he allowed himself a brief moment before responding to the littlest caretaker. "Then it ain't a Decepticon? Well darn. I was lookin' forward to punchin' someone."
Mass confusion set in as he spotted another Mini-Con just outside one that had looked entirely too much like Fixit had. Honestly he couldn't tell the difference between the two of them aside from the simple fact that the newcomer had a collar and looked a little rough around the edges. He tried his best to stay out of the talk between the two smaller Cybertronians, but he couldn't help but get a little curious.
And that's when the injured one screamed, which resulted in Grimlock screaming himself. That scream scared him!
Thankfully, Fixit tried to defend the Dinobot, allowing Grimlock to have a moment to relax after the sudden start. "Yeah, I'm one of the good guys now!" He grinned, promptly flexing one of his arms before turning to the orange one that he knew. "Need me to grab you anything, Fixit? I'll try to get it for ya."
At the responding scream, the battered minicon only screamed again, as if they were stuck in a feedback loop. Baby blue optics locked upon Grimlock’s face, and immediately Toolbox consulted his internal database of Alchemor prisoners, frantic to match the face to a prisoner identification file. Matching faces to ID files was the only way minicons had of knowing who was tormenting them, and it had become second nature to most of them in captivity -- one of the very few things they were able to do once their powers of transformation and their guardbot abilities had been stripped from them.
“He’s a Decepticon!” Toolbox squeaked back, his voice identical to the other minicon’s, “Why is there a Decepticon here?!” He had thought he’d escaped them to find the Autobot base! He cowered against Fixit, wondered why the other did not cower too.
Upon closer inspection, Fixit did not bear the signs of abuse he’d grown used to seeing. His paint was practically pristine and shiny, and his frame free of dents and scrapes. Clearly, no one had beaten him, or hurt him, or clamped a transformation inhibitor collar around his neck. Toolbox blinked, weary mind struggling to connect the dots. He knew that he had escaped from only one section of the wreckage of the Alchemor. Could there be other sections that had crashed to Earth whose crew had perhaps... escaped the terrible fate he had faced?
Despite his intense fear, Fixit’s gentle words soothed him slightly, and Toolbox could not help but relax slightly. He eyed the flexing dinobot suspiciously (or as suspiciously as he could in his poor condition) as if expecting him to lunge. “He does not… hurt you?”
Fixit couldn't help but give a sympathetic look to Grimlock. The dinobot had been so eager to help protect him that he had been willing to punch any Decepticon that had come to harm them. The reaction was actually strangely touching to Fixit, who gently patted Grimlock's leg. "Sorry, Grimlock. Maybe I'll make a practice dummy for you later."
Fixit himself tried to stay calm despite all the screaming, seeming to squeeze his optics shut to keep his processor from ringing. This hadn't been as bad before the point he couldn't remember--that he knew. The damage had been what made his processor ring with screaming. Once they had stopped screaming, he spoked gently and calmly. "Decepticon in name only. He...he's one of us. He's been protecting me." He did count what Grimlock was doing as protecting him. A larger bot willing to take on other bots for a smaller bot? That was protection, right?
He spoke gently, looking directly into Toolbox's optics. "He protects me. He's willing to fight larger bots to keep me safe." His voice was calm. "There's another, an Autobot. She helps too when she's not having to get supplies for us. She's on a supply run with the humans."
A practice dummy? Oh~! Grimlock would love that, especially after breaking the last several that Fixit or Denny had whipped up for him. Punched holes straight through 'em, or just plain sent them flying into parts unknown. At least.. unknown to the Dinobot.
He watched as the two Fixits interacted, the injured one screaming, which had in turn caused Grimlock to scream just out of surprise. When the Mini-Con had screamed back, he had to resist the urge to scream a second time, repeating their scream loop. It'd die here, but the idea was kind of funny in his head. He just didn't want to cause the poor little mech any more distress than he was already in.
For about a split nanosecond, Grimlock had almost asked where the Decepticon was so he could punch him, only to remember that the injured Fixit had been talking about him. He tried to explain that he was a good guy now, but Fixit definitely did a better job of wording it than he did. Yeah. He protected the little guy, and all the other Autobots here, as well as Russell and Denny. He was the muscle of the team, after all. Promptly, he flexed an arm, as if to point out that he was the strong one.
Decepticon in name only? Protecting Fixit?! Toolbox could hardly be blamed for being so sceptical after spending such a long time knowing only fear and pain from bots such as Grimlock. His sluggish HUD display connected the dinobot’s face to the relevant information within his internal database, and an abridged version file (more extensive, detailed files were stored within the Alchemor’s databanks) was quickly perused so that he could pick out the important details. Arrested and imprisoned for extensive property damage, had joined Decepticons… The dusty minicon looked from his fellow guardbot to Grimlock in disbelief. Why would a Decepticon protect a minicon? Having spent so long in a place where one stumble meant being beaten, he could hardly even begin to fathom that a larger bot would do anything but hurt those smaller than them.
Despite Toolbox’s extreme misgivings, Fixit’s gentle and calm demeanour throughout the whole affair helped to calm him somewhat. He was no longer screaming or cowering, but there was no denying just how obvious his fear of Grimlock was. “If… If you trust him,” He finally conceded. He could not outright trust this not-a-Decepticon, but he could trust the word of one of his own kind. “If you trust him to protect you, then… he must be trustworthy.”
All this commotion had done little for his already critical energy levels. Most of the non-critical systems had already shut down to conserve power (he had no idea what day or time it was, for the chronometer had been the first to go), but now some of his more important systems were beginning to be switched off too, starting with the ones whose loss were least likely to knock him offline for good. Poor Toolbox swayed, which was no easy feat considering he was still sprawled out on the ground.
“Do… Do you have any rations to spare?” He croaked, “It’s been… a very long time since I was permitted any energon.”
Fixit himself meant it too. Of course, he loved whipping up a new training dummy; it gave him something to do that wasn't just checking prisoner manifests and wondering when the next Decepticon might attempt attacking, and certainly was even more fun than arguing with Denny Clay over the semantics of organizational systems, alphebetized by various planetary or national alphabets. Mind you he loved having those sorts of discussions but sometimes he needed a break from the usual, right?
And his fellow Mini-Con was a great distraction from that! Mind you, so was Grimlock at the moment. But to find out there were more caretakers of the Alchemor? Now things were starting to make sense even though he still didn't remember what caused the crash. But that meant there must be more to the Alchemor too. And that opened up an entirely new can of Bot-Worms that Fixit hadn't even thought of.
"Good. Grimlock, if there are any incoming Decepticons, you'll be sure to hold them off for us, right?" He seemed to look to Grimlock as though to ask, even though he worried that maybe he asked too much of the dinobot.
He gasped when he heard what Toolbox was asking for next. "Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra--" He clanged on his chest a couple of times, a sort of self-soothing mechanism of short that seemed almost to be done to "cough up" the words. "Rations? Of course! Strongarm just brought some back a few days ago!" He would zoom over to where they kept the energon stored and grabbed a cube, bringing it over to Toobox. "Do you need help getting some into your systems?" Mini-Cons were made to serve, of course, and the calm and friendly way he was doing so, rather than a brutal enslaved version was how he and his kind were MEANT to serve. By helping others, not by slave labor!
Could he hold down the fort and hold off any Decepticons who made the mistake of invading their turf? Absolutely! Grimlock was a fighter, and he wasn't going down without a fight. After all, he was a 'king' and not a 'kisser'.
...though he could be if persuaded by a cute femme bot maybe, or.. maybe someone else?
"Oh, I'll hold 'em off, alright. I'm so not lettin' anyone come into our secret base without'a fight! I'll punch their lights out!" Clearly, he'd been far too excited about this, but he had to get his enjoyment from somewhere. Earth TV and movies would only tide him over for so long before he needed to punch something just to take the edge off a bit, but never would he throw a punch at one of his allies. This, of course, would be extended to Fixit's evident twin.
The Dinobot listened as the two Mini-Cons spoke, the injured one asking about rations. He did look like he could use some energon and even Fixit agreed. "I'll go grab a cube for ya if you want. I'll be sure to be extra gentle with it." He flashed the widest grin he could muster before taking off, rushing towards their stack of energon cubes. Being tall sometimes had it's advantages, and it allowed the Autobots to stack their energon just that much higher, even though they couldn't go too high with it. Even with the gated fence, having your energon stacked too high would only give the base away to any outsiders they didn't want. Or.. TV people in the case of Denny. Quickly he grabbed the cube situated on the top of the stack, rushing back over to Fixit and his 'twin'.
"Here ya go. One cube of energon comin' right up!" The large mech sat the cube down, keeping it close to the injured Mini-Con. Happy eatings~.
Though Toolbox remained doubtful still of Grimlock’s intentions purely due to habit (and those habits had been born for good reasons), Fixit’s words helped to soothe his worries. The Dinobot did look big enough to hold off any incoming Decepticons, he would grudgingly admit, and his he did seem different from the rest -- less menacing and sadistic, and certainly friendlier. It did not instantly erase the wariness towards larger bots within Toolbox’s spark, for he’d certainly developed it for a good reason, but… Fixit had said Grimlock was trustworthy, and Grimlock, thus far, had not tried to punch him, or kick him, or otherwise harm him.
His fellow minicon zoomed off in an instant at the mention of energon, and Toolbox felt a brief pulse of fear and alarm when he disappeared from view -- though he did not know if it was fear for himself or for Fixit. He was doubly alarmed when Grimlock went trotting off as well, the gorund shaking with each step. He didn’t have long to worry, though, for Fixit was zooming back with rations in-servo, the dinobot close behind.
It had been so long since he’d seen so much energon in one place, and it was only two cubes. “I-I should be alright, but thank you,” How strange it was, for one of his own kind to tend to him when he was also meant to do the tending! And how strange it was to have someone so large be willing to care for someone of his stature! With shaking servos, he took the offered energon, and lifted it to his intake. In his eagerness he nearly spilled the first cube all over himself. He drank and drank, greedy from starvation, swapping out the first cube for the second once he’d drained it, until his tanks went from containing fumes to being full, and didn’t stop until every last critical energon level warning on his HUD blinked away.
He then realized that, in all the ruckus, he had been dreadfully rude in that he hadn’t even told them his designation. “My name is Toolbox,” he croaked, feeling dreadfully embarrassed by his lack of etiquette.
Of course, Fixit couldn't fault Toolbox for his doubts. At first, he had been a little doubtful of Grimlock until he'd gotten to know him more and had gotten help from him. Considering that the inhibitor collar appeared to be firmly locked to the point that a resonating frequency wasn't even prying it, Fixit couldn't rightly blame anyone for being wary of bots big enough to subjugate a Mini-Con in this manner! He didn't even have to hear much to know how bad things seemed. As Denny and Russell Clay often said, the proof of the pudding was in the eating of it--and sometimes you had to see rather than hear to know.
He would let Toolbox take in energon and get his bearings for the moment; the fellow prison-guard Mini-Con had been through so much, as the scuffs, scratches, and dents seemed to tell the story. A sad tale, really, and one that Fixit did want to hear. But he wanted Toolbox to have that chance to rest first.
"Please don't worry. You've been through so much, and you needed refueling before you could do anything else." Fixit gave a sad smile. "Your name sounds familiar, you know that? Even without my full mem-mem-mem..." He seemed to thump at his chest as though to try to cough up the word, as though he had choked on the word--which was fair in his emotional state. "Even without my full memory, your name seems familiar."
He wasn't going to push or rush things of course, so he took the time to let Toolbox get his bearings before he finally spoke up once more. "Feel free to tell us anything, when you're ready. We won't judge you, we promise."
Shoutbox
Please respect the space and don't hesitate to ask questions!
altria : please dont be dead?
Jun 14, 2023 22:40:34 GMT
Partia: Is this still alive?
Dec 17, 2022 6:02:02 GMT
Partia: Is this still alive?
Dec 17, 2022 6:01:34 GMT
Check here for the latest
