Sludge lowered his long neck into the swamp, wallowing in both the murky substance that his name described and depression. Grimlock had yelled at him again, for doing something real stupid. But how was he supposed to know that the human children would be afraid of him? He thought they all liked dinosaurs.

Half a mile above him, Swoop did what his name described as he searched the Florida swamps for his teammate. He had volunteered to bring Sludge back because he figured Grimlock had done enough "damage" for the day. Finally finding his fellow Dinobot, he twisted his flexible frame and flew down for a lithe landing on a log. "Uh… hey," he said awkwardly.

"I was just trying to make friends, you know," Sludge said.

"I know."

"Some of the other Autobots have human friends. I thought maybe if I found some humans that liked dinosaurs they'd like me too."

"I figured."

"So why did they all run from me?"

"Well, it didn't help when you accidentally knocked over that Ferris wheel. Good thing no one was in it."

"I was just trying to make friends," Sludge repeated, stuck on that sentence. "It's bad enough all the other Autobots think I'm big and dumb. I hoped humans wouldn't make that assumption too."

"They're afraid of all Transformers, Sludge," Swoop pointed out. "The bigger, the scarier. They'd be even more afraid of us."

"So why do you think the Autobots fear us, then?" Sludge looked up at Swoop finally.

"I think that has mostly to do with Grimlock's reputation."

"Oh, yeah." Sludge made a sound akin to a sigh. "Why do we follow him around, again? I know Snarl and Slag don't care, but I know you want to make friends too."

Swoop's voice was strangely neutral as he answered, "Because we were all in bad ways when he found each and every one of us. You were in that carnival, doing-"

"Don't remind me," Sludge interrupted, speaking a bit more hastily than usual.

Swoop nodded. "And I was left for dead in Kaon by that Predacon who stole my name when Grimlock saved me," he said bitterly.

"Really? Which one was that?"

Swoop looked at him incredulously for an awkward pause. Finally he answered, "Divebomb."

"Ohhh," Sludge said, glancing away for a moment. It seemed obvious, now.

Swoop pushed himself into the air and slowly hovered over to perch on Sludge's backside. "You should come on back to base," Swoop prodded. "And slag, my-"

"What about him?" Sludge asked.

"What about who?"

"Slag."

"What about Slag?"

"You were gonna say something about him."

"No! I was swearing."

"Huh?"

"I said 'slag' like a cuss word, not 'Slag' like the Slag."

"Oh! Sorry."

Swoop hissed air out of his beak in frustration. "I was gonna say, 'Slag, my wings are tired. Could you give me a ride back home?'"

"Oh. Sure, I guess so," Sludge said as he yanked himself free of the much of the swamp, lumbering slowly around to go back the way he came in. No sense in knocking down another trail of trees.

Swoop swayed a bit but somehow managed to stay on his back. "Y'know, if y'ever wanna do something, er, I guess I wouldn't mind the company."

"You mean it?" Sludge paused, swaying his neck around to look the mecha-dactyl in the optics. "Like, friends?"

"Uh… I guess so."

"But I thought Dinobots weren't supposed to have friends."

Swoop rolled his optics before telling Sludge to keep walking. "You need to stop listening to Snarl when he's drunk."