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A bestial caterwaul razes through a sleepy lakeside, rousing every creature in its wake. There's barely enough time for birds to flee the surrounding canopy before a resounding splash follows. The aftermath is suspiciously absent of struggling, and nature stops to listen.
The beating of frightened wings fades. The breeze stills. Somewhere, a lone fruit drops from its branch. The once peaceful basin is plunged into a now disturbing silence..
..But not for long.
"Nice going, Rattrap!" Shouted a rough, admonishing voice.
"C'mon, the kid's gotta get over it eventually! I just gave him a lil' push in the right direction! Is that so bad?" Answered a shriller one, defensively.
The 'kid' in question finally emerges from the lake, otherwise tranquil waters rippling as his form resurfaces, gasping. It laps up at his vents and rushes into the gaps in his armor, trying to drag him back under, and for a brief moment this heroic Maximal is fully convinced of his doom..
..Until he feels the solid lakebed underneath his paws and slowly quits thrashing. It only slightly dampens his indignation at this attempt on his life.
Transforming out of beast mode, the ferocious young mech stands and turns to his attacker, an unhappy pout on his face. His armor clatters noisily despite the pleasant lukewarmth of the water, which only reaches up to his hip joints, as he cries, "You didn't have to be so literal about it!"
The culprit, Rattrap, lingering outside the shoreline's reach by the tall boulder that he'd just employed as a diving board, merely titters in amusement at his fellow beastformer's soaked state.
The mediator, Rhinox, who'd also maximized and waded closer in case the youth actually managed to hurt himself, is clearly unimpressed by this display. He snorts, an exhausted burst of humid air leaving his vents. "..He's not wrong. Mostly. Even you can't run forever, Cheetor, and you know that. The sooner you face it, the better."
'It', being the Maximals' current state of affairs. Turns out organic body parts require regular maintenance just as living metal does, the most pressing aspect of which – frequently pointed out while coexisting in their stuffy shipwreck – quickly became hygiene. Rolling around in the dust (and other primitive methods of grooming they'd observed) could only get you so far, and cleaning solvents don't exactly feel great on organic hide.
Unfortunately, their plans to install plumbing sourced from the turbulent waterfall underneath the Axalon fell short once they realized how precarious (and exploitable, and time-consuming) it would be.
Fortunately, Tigatron, exceptional scout and more attuned to his nature than any of them could hope to be, proposed a solution in the form of a lonely lake. It resides deep in Maximal territory, far from the excessive energon field buildup near their base and shielded from spying optics by a steep basin.
Such a place of respite almost felt too good to be true. Granted, they couldn't spend too long being exposed out here, leaving their base vulnerable to attack and potentially betraying the location of their sanctuary.. But they evened their odds by visiting during times of low Pred activity (they had to have some downtime) and leaving someone behind on guard duty.
At least, Primal seemed to think it's worth the risk – if not for their collective wellbeing, per Rhinox's expert opinion, then just to curb everyone's complaints. Even if they took longer than he'd like due to.. Unforeseen complications, such as Cheetor's recently-acquired aquaphobia.
The fearless Maximal commander was not far, keeping an optic on his teammates in a nearby flowerpatch while the morning sun dried his fur, watching the current proceedings with a fond shake of his helm.
Optimus couldn't stay stern for long. It's hard to bring himself to intervene and rush the pack along when being granted such rare, blissful moments of peace.
He mused to himself as their youngest pawed at the water with his team's encouragement. They bantered and joked around like they weren't intergalactic castaways, landed in the middle of a timelost conflict that they were unexpected participants of. At the risk of exposing his youthful idealism, it let him pretend they were under different circumstances for a while, where maybe he'd been innocently researching their lovely battleground.
Rhinox soon joined him amidst the sunlit wildflowers, silently echoing the sentiment, and together they leaned back and basked in this precious tranquility.
Of course, that only lasted about ten kliks.
A sharp finial flicks once at the sound of gravel crunching underfoot, but he ignores the disturbance. It flicks twice when what follows is an encumbered huff, rapidly approaching steps and a sharp 'Oi!'
"Nuh-uh, no shaking! Go get a towel like a civilized mech, ya filthy animal!"
That finally woke Primal from his light doze, and he hesitantly onlines an optic to see a clean but miserably waterlogged Cheetor. Rivulets running from transformation seams, he wrings his tail and whines, "But- But it's just water, like you said! It's already everywhere, and my fur's so heavyyy, and we're outside! What's the big deal?!"
Suddenly, like a prehistoric specter summoned forth to answer the felid's grievances, Dinobot appears.
After somehow making himself largely scarce for the past half-megacycle, the saurian warrior surfaces from the depths of the lake as if an ancient, terrible beast stirred by the scent of opportunity. Power-wading closer, water streaming down his large frame, he sneers in disgust at the sight of Rattrap needling Cheetor from the safety of dry land.
How very ironic. Sharp as an energon blade, his gaze hones in on a silver-brown pede gingerly retreating from the encroaching shore. The very moment the filthy rat corrects his footing, prepared to play it off as a surprised reaction, he seizes the chance and cuts in with a resonant growl.
"Judging by the vermin's.. *snrrt*.. Hypocritical reluctance.. To be in prolonged contact with the liquid, perhaps he's not yet ready to part with his fleas."
Caught off-guard, Rattrap abandons all prior thought processes to prioritize his feud with the ex-Pred in record time.
Dinobreath is nowhere near as protective of the young'un as his new comrades can be – despite occasionally being a subject of the former's bright-eyed admiration and eagerness to impress – so his scathing comments were likely not meant in his defense. For all that talk about honor, he sure wasn't above socially weaponizing whoever happened to be at his disposal. Unluckily for him, neither was Rattrap.
Fur bristling and shoulders hiked high, he slips into the role of contrarian as comfortably as he would his beast mode and broadly gestures at Cheetor, "I just think we shouldn't encourage this sorta behavior! I get we're supposed'ta 'blend in' and all that jazz, but you've seen what the kid's like when you give him an inch ("Hey!") and.."
Belatedly realizing that he's just been called a fleabag, he retaliates, "-And where've you been to know just how long I spent washin' up, huh!? Holding your breath at the bottom of the lake to avoid fraternizin' again?"
Lurching forward, the saurian rumbles deep in the back of his intake in a not-so-subtle deflection, "Your persistent stench leaves little room for speculation, rrrodent!"
Now at a more personable distance, said rodent let his gaze drift from that vicious snarl to disdainfully eye the plumage that ran up Dinobot's middle, fanning out to span his broad chest.
He'd puffed up like an oversized astro-turkey in an involuntary display of aggression, the blue-tipped feathers on his snout/sternum steadily dripping. It looked ridiculous and made annoying him hard to resist. Though the Utahraptor is not vain by any means, he sure liked to lord his new kibble's well-maintenance over Rattrap whenever he jabbed at his hygiene...
Sadly, his internal debate on if he could get away with leaving a servo-shaped bald spot on Dinobot's chassis (and if he'd have to hit top speed for it) is rudely interrupted by Cheetor's petulance. "But how is that even a problem? It's not like I'm gonna show up sopping wet to the control room and fry Sentinel or whatever! You go vent-'sploring while everyone's trying to recharge all the time and no one calls you out, why do I get all the slag?!"
Sputtering, the infiltrator jumps to his own defense; "'Ey, it's dicey work goin' where your squeamish afts won't! Can ya blame me for tryin'ta stay on top of my game?"
Too preoccupied with pulling excuses out of his tailpipe, Rattrap fails to realize a grave mistake; turning his back on ol' Chopperface.
Dinobot doesn't waste a nanoklik. He silently folds into beast mode, not once taking his eyes off the prize, falls into an instinctive prowl and sinks to his snout.
The two arguing mechs, quickly devolving into ad hominems and ecological fallacies, fail to notice the predator in the water. To their credit, it moves more quietly than anything its size has the right to as it patiently stalks around them.
Optimus Primal recognizes what's about to transpire the moment it stops short of the lake's edge, right behind a distracted Rattrap. He and Rhinox exchange a conspiratorial glance before slowly backing away.
No sooner than they safely exit the splash zone, Dinobot lunges. He erupts onto land like a tidal wave, and his victim barely has the time to whip around and gasp before he begins to vigorously shake off.
Rattrap, taking the full brunt of the torrential assault, shrieks like he's being dissolved.
Time slows to an agonizing crawl, his processor struggling to accept his imminent contact with a wall of liquid as wide as he is tall. The last thing he registers before being instantly drenched upon impact is the hypnotic slow-mo of Dinobot's slack outer plating sliding over itself, lagging after each twist of his frame and flinging water wherever it goes.
The raptor centrifuges for what felt like eons before he's satisfied, seamlessly segueing into robot mode as his plating settles again, applying the momentum of his tail to flick a final ounce of feather-water straight at the vermin's face.
Shell-shocked, Rattrap stood paralyzed while Dinobot rose to his full height and flexed a chestplate into place with a muffled click, casting a broad shadow over his dripping form. Internally battling for composure, he eventually manages to slowly gawk up at the helm eclipsing the sun.
Haloed by backlight in a mockingly angelic visage, the slagger grins back at him. Actually grins, carnivorous teeth in full display and strangely void of any real malice. It might be the first time he's ever seen raw, bona fide mirth on that ugly mug.
It's still a little guarded, distrustfully restrained, and that makes it all the more infuriating.
He'll get him back for this. He'll make the barbaric moron wish he'd smiled more while he still could… One of these days.
Stray droplets trickling from his chin, Dinobot bends down to optic-level and trills pleasantly as he taunts Rattrap; "Now, was that so bad?"
To Rattrap's chagrin, before he can dive teeth-first for his throat cables, Cheetor loses the battle against the basal instinct to propel moisture from his fur. He proceeds to spray him from behind in a spectacular show of social contagion, inciting another bout of screaming and dousing the rodent to completion.