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Mud Puddles

Few things, Hot Rod thought, were as fun as the back roads he'd discovered while exploring. There was something about the feel of wet earth spraying up along the undercarriage of his alt-mode and making a beautiful plume along his sides - a distinct and enjoyable sensation only available on Earth. Sure, other planets had mud, but it just wasn't quite the same.

As he zoomed through another puddle, he felt it splatter up along his spoiler and speckle along his door handles. One more puddle and it would be a solid, even coat. Barely feeling dirty, he aimed for each rut and divot on the road. Instead, he was a work of art unto himself, painted temporarily by the planet itself as he touched it.

Cruising through a patch of mostly sitting water, he shivered as his underside was sprayed with cool wetness. There were too many trees above to warm this particular road, but Hot Rod didn't mind at all. More mud plastered across his front end and windshield, leaving him reliant solely on sensors and infared as he searched for the next low spot along the road.

Before he could continue, though, he found himself slowed to a crawl by a human vehicle approaching in the other direction. As he crept along, Hot Rod wondered if perhaps the humans in the other vehicle saw him only as dirty, not as an abstract mix of alien and their own unique planet. He was fairly sure that upon his return, many of the other Autobots would view him as simply covered in filth - a few would understand, though it wasn't likely they'd have a chance to see him before someone came after him with an emergency hose.

Hot Rod revved his engine once the other vehicle was a good quarter-mile past and pulled back into the middle of the road, screaming along towards a dip that seemed to have at least two inches of muddy water sitting in it. He would be absolutely covered by the time he arrived back for his shift on duty, twitching slightly as the mud dried and crumbled inside his joints and in any seam or gap in his armor where it could possibly have squeezed through. That too was unique, delightful in a way that made others shake their heads and complain he was leaving a trail of dusty earth in the hallways.

Perhaps he could blast through a carwash on the way back. He was fairly sure that someone had tucked some change into his glovebox and that he could get it to a human attendant. He really didn't need another lecture, after all. Not about something as trivial as a little mud.

But that was for later. Hot Rod crashed through the puddle in front of him, thin mud spraying up in twenty-foot arcs on either side and coming down all around him, wetting even his roof with tiny droplets. He still had miles of secluded road in front of him and he didn't intend on leaving a single puddle undisturbed.