So sorry for those who were hoping for a complete retelling of The Lost Hero. It would be way too complex to rewrite the entire book just for a few moments to account for the fact that Piper just met Jason and Leo without fake memories of the former and the presence of the Transformers in this world.

But there are a few parts of the quest I'm retelling, such as this one, all credit for the original writing goes to Rick Riordan.

As always, I don't know Transformers or the Riordanverse; they belong to their owners.

Chapter 19: We Wreck and Then We Rule.

And I thought my life was crazy before discovering I was a demigod.

Just as a quick recap, so far on this quest, we have...

Met a wind god in Quebec,

Ran into some Cyclops,

And found out my dad was kidnapped by Medea... Yes, the Medea.

Apparently, she had worked together with Jane to get my dad kidnapped. They had tricked him into heading to Oakland before coming back from his press tour without alerting the press or police. Medea had even convinced him into thinking I was the one in trouble.

And it was all to get me to do the bidding of someone who was preparing to wage war on the gods.

It was a lot to take in, to put it mildly.

I probably would have gone crazy or broken down if it wasn't for Jason and Leo. They were the best friends I'd ever had. Especially since the last best friend I had turned out to be a lying monster.

So it really sucked when Medea used her charm speak to trick Jason and Leo into turning on each other.

Although, on the other hand, we'd managed to save Coach Hedge. It turns out her hideout is where those storm spirits brought him. We found him frozen in place inside a cage. And we captured some of Dylan's storm spirit goons, who were also in cages for some reason.

We'd barely been able to escape after I snapped Leo and Jason out of it, and then we started flying on Festus to see this guy called Aeolus. I was so exhausted from the fight with Medea that I fell asleep on Festus, who was also carrying Hedge and the Storm Spirits in their cages.

I was really hoping for a good night's sleep, but no such luck.

Sometime in the middle of the night, at random, Festus started falling out of the sky.

"Not again!" Leo yelled, "You can't fall again!"

I was hanging on for dear life. The wind was stinging my eyes.

"What's wrong with him!?" I managed to shout.

Leo was fiddling with some panels he'd opened up. "The drive system's overloaded!" he shouted back.

"What does that mean?" Jason asked,

"It means he doesn't have the strength to fly us!" Leo explained.

"Crap!" I shouted.

We were getting closer and closer to the ground. A lightbulb seemed to go off in Leo's head.

"Jason!" he screamed. "Take Piper and fly out of here! We need to lighten the load!"

"What about you!?" I asked

"I'll be fine, just-"

At that moment, we hit a bit of turbulence, and I was sent flying out of my harness and into the air.

"PIPER!" screamed Jason. He unbuckled his harness and flew after me, but I was already flying a fair distance away.

"Whoa! Help!" I cried as I flailed my arms around in a panic.

I closed my eyes. Any moment now, I was sure Jason would catch me, and I'd be in his gentle, handsome arms again.

But I didn't feel Jason grab me.

I felt myself land on something solid—a piece of metal.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was on the wing of a green helicopter.

I gazed in amazement at my luck, and that's when the helicopter started speaking.

"Welcome to Air Wrecker. I'm your host, Springer, and it's my pleasure to rescue you today!"

Jason flew up in front of me and the helicopter and asked, "Piper, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. "Thanks to..."

"Name's Springer." The helicopter introduced.

"Well, thanks, Spring—"

Jason was interrupted by the sound of a bone-crushing crash.

"Leo!" I shouted.

When we got to the crash site, we found a white and green transformer with a faceplate looking over it.

Jason landed, and Springer let me off before transforming into his robot mode. "What happened, Wheeljack?" he asked.

"Surface to air missiles." Wheeljack explained, "They hit the erm... dragon in mid-air and sent them crashing."

"That's odd; they're only supposed to target Decepticons..." Springer noted.

I rushed over to the site and found an unconscious Leo, along with the cages holding Coach Hedge and Dylan and his storm spirit buddies scattered around.

"Leo?" I asked.

Leo got up, rubbing his head. "What hit us?" he muttered.

"Surface-to-air missiles, apparently," Jason said.

Leo's face went into shock. "Oh no! Festus!" He looked around. Festus had practically disintegrated. His parts were scattered all over the lawn; the only thing remotely intact was his head.

Leo rushed over to his head and started crying. "No..." he said softly. Festus's eyes weakly opened.

Wheeljack walked over to him, "You okay, kid?"

Leo ignored him. "You can't go!" Leo pleaded, "You're the best thing I ever fixed!"

Wheeljack put a comforting, oversized hand on Leo's back. "It's gonna be okay, kid," he said in a soothing voice. "Take it from me; not every invention works out."

"You sound like my dad..." Leo muttered.

"Your dad?" I asked, "When did you-"

Leo gave me a look that said, "I'll explain later" and went back to crying. "It's not fair..." he sniffed.

Festus started clicking. The clicks didn't mean anything to me, but to Leo, they seemed to mean the world.

"Yeah. I will." He said, "I promise."

Then the dragon's eyes went out.

We came over and hugged him. He seemed appreciative, but he had something on his mind.

"So what did you promise him?" Jason asked.

Leo fiddled with Festus's head a bit before taking something out. "That talk with my dad I mentioned? He told me something. Everything can be reused."

"Your dad sounds like my kinda guy," Wheeljack cheerfully said.

After he finished working, Leo looked up at the sky, "Dad, take him to the bunker. Please, until I can reuse him. I've never asked you for anything."

The wind picked up, and Festus's head started flying into the air.

"Whoa!" said Springer.

With that finished, Leo turned back to us, "Now. Where are we?" he asked.

"Omaha Nebreska," Springer explained.

"Yeah, at the site of one of our bases." Wheeljack added, "Looks like our defense system attacked you."

"Why would an Autobot defense system attack us?" Jason asked.

"That's what I want to know." Springer explained, "A few weeks ago, this base went quiet. We hadn't heard anything from it. I sent members of my team, The Wreckers, to investigate, but they haven't reported back."

"So me and Springer decided to do a little upfront investigation." Wheeljack continued, "We had just arrived when we saw you guys falling out of the sky."

"You think Decepticons took over the base?" Leo asked.

I gulped. I was not ready to meet more Decepticons just yet.

"Honestly, I doubt it," Wheeljack said. "If the Decepticons took over, they'd have advertised it on a billboard. But we haven't heard anything from this base at all."

"But before we continue that mission, I need to ask you something." Springer said, kneeling down so he was closer to eye level with us, "What are you kids doing riding on a robot dragon?"

We did our best to explain. I thought they would laugh, but surprisingly, they believed us.

"These must be some of those 'Demigods,' Hot Rod, Hound, Bumblebee, Prowl, and the others told us about..." Wheeljack mused.

"Alright. Let's get inside the base and figure out what's going on," Springer suggested. "Then we can compare notes."

"Yeah, one problem: the lawn is full of booby traps." Jason pointed out.

"Leave that to me," Leo smirked.

"Hah! Excuse me?" Wheeljack asked, "I'm the booby trap expert around here. I made most of these traps. I'll do it."

"I fixed a giant robotic dragon!" Leo pointed out, "Plus, I'm more nimble and not as bulky."

"Bulky!?" Wheeljack said, offended, "I'm not bulky! My buddy Bulkhead is bulky!"

The two continued on like this for a while, invoking groans from the rest of us.

In the end, both Leo and Wheeljack disabled the booby traps on the path to the door. It was honestly amazing; these two had only just met, yet they were in perfect sync with one another. Then they started competing with each other to see who could disable the most.

Leo was still torn up about Festus, but I could tell that working with someone as like-minded as him was helping him feel much better.

Meanwhile, Springer was carrying Hedge and the Storm Spirit's cages, with me and Jason close behind. As we went along, Jason turned to me. "Hey Piper, I know I was in a daze back in Chicago, but that stuff about your dad—if he's in trouble, I wanna help. I don't care if it's a trap or not."

I gave him a sad expression: "Jason, you don't know what you're saying. Please—don't make me feel worse."

When we got to the front door, it was surprisingly unlocked.

"I got a bad feeling about this..." Springer said.

When we got into the place, there was more bad news: the light switch wasn't working.

"What's next? Is a Xenomorph going to jump out at us?" Leo muttered.

"Xenomorph?" Springer asked.

"You know, from Alien?" Leo elaborated.

Springer and Wheeljack just stared at him with blank expressions.

"The horror movie Alien?"

"There's a horror movie called Alien?" Wheeljack asked.

"Yeah?"

"...That's really offensive." Wheeljack said, "No wonder everyone keeps invading you.".

"Huh," Leo said thoughtfully, "I never thought of it like that..."

"Focus guys!" I snapped.

"Whoa, Piper, calm down," Jason said soothingly.

I shook my head. "I'm sorry. It's just been a day." I muttered.

"Why don't you kids get some rest?" Springer suggested, "Me and Wheeljack will keep watch.".

We were all too happy to agree, and I plopped down on one of the couches for humans. Leo couldn't make fire for some reason, so he and Jason just sat off to the side, talking.

Springer sat next to me and looked down at me.

"You've met Transformers before, haven't you?" he asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," I answered.

"Just the way you reacted to us, you've had up-close encounters with Transformers before." Springer guessed, "Autobots most likely because you're not scared of—"

"Shut up," I muttered.

"Touchy subject?"

"Major."

"Okay." Springer nodded understandably.

At last, I finally fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of Coach Hedge screaming.

I jolted up and looked around. Coach Hedge was currently bonking his club ineffectively at Springer. He was also screaming several choice words I'd heard him use before.

"Um... Mr..."

"Hedge! Gleeson Hedge!"

"Right." Springer continued, "Could you please stop?"

"DIE!" Hedge shouted.

"Coach is awake..." Leo muttered.

"Coach!" shouted Jason.

Hedge swerved to look at Jason; his eyes were so wild, I was worried he'd attack us anyway.

"You're one of the new kids," he said, lowering his club, "Jason." Then he looked at me "And you're the other new one, Piper."

"That's us."

"What's going on?" Hedge asked, "Have we been kidnapped by these-" He proceeded to say more words I'm not supposed to repeat back, "-Transformers?"

I groaned, "Why do you keep calling them that!?"

"I think I get it," Jason said. "Fau—Saytrs are creatures of nature. Transformers are mechanical beings. You probably feel like they're your antithesis or something, right?"

"Exactly!" Hedge confirmed, "They shouldn't be here! Now DIE!" he shouted as he began to attack Springer again, with just as much success as before.

"Maybe we should take this guy to see Beachcomber and Hound..." muttered Wheeljack.

We finally managed to get Hedge to calm down, then explained to him what exactly had happened in between his capture by Storm Spirits and now.

And that's also when Hedge noticed something that had slipped our eyes earlier.

"Why's everything gold?" he asked.

"What?".

We looked around. We didn't notice it before because it was so dark, but everything in the base was indeed gold, and I do mean everything: the doors, the furniture, and even the computer panels.

"What happened to our base!?" Wheeljack asked in horror.

"So we were kidnapped by you!" Hedge yelled, "Was that other Transformer responsible for this!?"

"What other Transformer?" Springer asked.

"The blue one with the wings! Two guns on each of his wrists!"

"Thundercracker?" Wheeljack asked.

"Yeah, him," I said bitterly.

"But he was helping us, you know, in spite of being a Decepticon," Leo said.

Springer and Wheeljack looked really confused.

Jason looked at me. "Piper..." he said.

I groaned, "Okay, fine, yes, I was friends with a Decepticon." I confirmed.

I don't know what I expected from Springer and Wheeljack's reaction, but I was surprised when they seemed intrigued by this.

"If Thundercracker befriended a human, maybe we should reach out to him," Springer suggested.

"Why?" I asked.

Before Springer could explain, a door opened up nearby, and out of it stepped a pudgy man in a bathrobe wearing a turban.

For a moment, no one said anything.

"DIE!" Coach Hedge screamed as he raised his club and charged in.

Wheeljack grabbed him by the shirt collar carefully, and Coach Hedge began to run in place. "Hold your horses, buddy," Wheeljack said.

Coach Hedge grunted, but he complied.

A younger man heard the commotion and ran in. "Father, what's going on here?" he asked.

"What's going on here?! What are you doing in our base!?" Springer demanded.

The pudgy guy stepped forward. "Apologies," he said. "But your base was just the look I was searching for; I just had to have it."

"Where are our friends!?" Wheeljack asked.

"And who are you?" Jason added.

The old man smiled, "Well, simple good chaps. I am King Midas."

There was another moment of silence.

"WHAT!?" Leo finally said.

"That's impossible!" Coach Hedge said, "You died!"

"Hmmm. I think I was dead for a while, actually..." Midas mused, "It seems like a dream now though."

"But how?" I asked, "You wouldn't happen to have a patron, would you?"

"Does it matter?" Midas asked,

"Considering you're not supposed to be alive, yes!" Leo protested.

"We could kill them again," Hedge suggested.

"Not helping," Jason said.

"Forget that!" Springer said, "Why are you here in our base!?"

"Erm..." Midas turned to the younger guy. "Why are we here, Lit?" he asked.

"The oracle?"

"Right yes! The oracle! We were told there was an Oracle in Omaha! And as I said, this seemed like a good place to settle down!"

"But it's our place!" Springer maintained.

Midas ignored him. "Oh, by the way, Lit is short for Lityereus. Horrible name, but he is a master swordsman. They called him the reaper of men back in the day."

"Nice," I muttered sarcastically.

"Forget your son! Why's our base gold now!?" Wheeljack asked.

"Did you paint it gold?" Springer added.

Midas scoffed, "Oh no, no, no. I made it gold."

"...What?" I asked.

"I'm so confused right now..." Jason muttered.

"I don't understand..." I noted, "The story said you gave up your golden touch. You learned your lesson and gave it up by bathing in the river!"

"My dear girl, did the story say I lost my golden touch?" Midas asks.

I was going to say, "Some versions do," but Midas interrupted me.

"I just learned to reverse it! Running water does the trick. That's why I had to turn all the plumbing in my new house off."

"Your new house!?" Springer asked indignantly.

Once again, Midas ignored him and kept ranting, "But occasionally I forget and I have the odd accident—sorry again, Lit—but aside from that, I'm still as golden-touched as ever."

Leo snickered.

I was completely lost. "But wasn't the point of the story that you learned your lesson?" I asked.

"May I see your backpack for a moment, dear?" Midas asked, extending his hand.

"Uh, sure," I said, hesitantly handing him the backpack I'd been carrying for a while.

Sure enough, the moment Midas touched it, the backpack turned to a flexible gold fabric.

"Now not only is the pack gold, it's magic! Go ahead, put your storm spirit enemies in there!" Midas said, tossing me the bag back.

"Okay..." I handed it to Leo, who put the open bag next to the storm spirit cage. As soon as he did, like a vacuum, Dylan's buddies were sucked into the bag.

"Huh, cool," Leo said.

"You see!? My touch isn't a curse! It's a gift!" Midas insisted, "What lesson did I have to learn? Besides, my daughter Zoe was better as a statue anyway."

He gestured behind him, and there was a girl with a shocked expression frozen in place as a gold statue.

"That's horrible!" I shouted.

"Nonsense! She doesn't mind. Besides, if I learned my lesson, would I have gotten these?"

He took off his turban, and growing out of his gray hair were donkey's ears.

Everyone just stood there, staring at them for a minute.

"You see," Midas started explaining, "there was a music competition between Pan and Apollo, and I-"

He didn't get to finish because Wheeljack and Leo burst out laughing.

Midas, for the first time, looked a little unhappy. "ANYWAY," he said. "The point is, gold has many uses! That must be why I was brought back, to bankroll my patron!"

"So you do have a patron!" Jason said, "You're working for the Giants!"

"Oh, fine, yes, I am. I don't care for that myself, but...

"Okay, enough of this!" said Springer. "Get out of our base now!" he demanded. He took out a rifle and put it in Midas's face.

Midas stood there unflinchingly. "Or what?" he asked.

"Don't think us Autobots are above killing humans." Wheeljack said, "If they're nasty enough."

Midas smirked. "Oh, Lit?" he asked.

Lit stepped forward, pulling out his sword. Jason brought out his coin and flipped it into its javelin form. Hedge got excited and pulled out his club. Leo's fire was disabled, so he brought out a giant hammer from his tool belt. And I brought out my dagger.

"Six on one pal, and two of us have you beat in the size category. Give up." Springer ordered.

"Oh. I've got more backup than this." Midas said. He snapped his fingers.

Another bigger door nearby opened, and out of it stepped a couple of Transformers; one had claws for arms and a single eye; one was bulky; another looked like he turned into a drill tank; and yet another had a visor and a faceplate.

And they were all gold.

Wheeljack's eyes widened in terror upon seeing the four. "Whirl, Bulkhead, Twintwist, Leadfoot!" he said, horrified.

Springer got even angrier. "What did you do to them!?" he yelled.

"I told you how my gold touch makes things magic? Well. It seems when it's used on transformers, it makes them bend to my will." Midas started to laugh maniacally. "Get them!" he ordered.

The four mind-controlled Autobots started running toward us.

Springer proceeded to drop his rifle and pull out two swords. Wheeljack also brought his own pair of swords.

"Wreck N Rule everyone!" yelled Springer, and he and Wheeljack charged in, attacking their old teammates.

"YEAH! Now we're talking!" Hedge hollered, waving his club as he charged with them.

I followed close behind with my dagger and Leo with his hammer. Jason stayed behind to take care of Lit. I could hear their weapons clashing right behind me.

The robot with a face plate and visor (Leadfoot, I think) reached his arm toward me with his hand outstretched; I barely managed to duck in time, and I could feel his robotic fingers comb through my hair. I rolled between his legs and stabbed my dagger in the back of his ankle.

If he felt the pain, Leadfoot didn't show it. He didn't make any sound at all. He just made another grab at me; this time I wasn't able to dodge, and he grabbed me with his right fist. I tried to move, but he had an iron grip.

I stabbed his fist with my dagger, but still nothing. No reaction. He began to squeeze tighter and tighter until the pain became unbearable. I started screaming in agony. In a second, I was about to become a human banana peel.

"Heads up!" shouted Jason's voice. I turned to see him jump up. Using his sword, he sliced Leadfoot's right arm off. It fell to the ground with a CLUNK and his fist opened, releasing me.

I took a moment to get in a gasp of air before turning to Jason. "Thanks," I said, smiling.

"You're wel- WHOA!" Jason said and then dodged a kick from Leadfoot.

"So you beat Lit?" I asked, dodging with him.

"Yeah. Tricked his dad into helping him get up!" Jason laughed, he pointed, and I saw Lit on the ground as a gold statue with an irritated Midas looking over at us.

"Nice!" I laughed back.

Even with Lit gone, things were still pretty bad; Springer was currently grappling with Whirl, Bulkhead had Wheeljack pinned against a wall, and Leo and Hedge were ineffectively wailing on Twintwist.

"Gah, it's no use!" said Leo as he whacked his hammer on Twintwist's back. "We need to get these guys back to normal somehow!"

"We need running water for that, and you heard Midas!" Springer yelled, "He turned all the plumbing in the base off!"

Wheeljack grunted as he took a punch to the face from Bulkhead. "URG! If only we had some way to generate an electric charge!" he muttered.

Jason's ears seemed to perk up at that. "What did you say?" he asked.

"I said we need a way to generate an electric charge!" Wheeljack explained just as he managed to get out of Bulkhead's grip and avoid another punch, "Gold conducts electricity!"

"Hey!" Leo laughed. "We do have a way!"

He, Jason, and I looked at each other, smirking.

"Brace yourselves!" Jason shouted as he closed his eyes and started to focus.

Outside, we could hear thunder rumbling.

"What is this!?" Midas screamed in horror.

Jason raised his javelin to the roof, and a lightning bolt tore through the ceiling. The roof exploded, the bolt came down on Jason's javelin, and electricity started to spread all over the base. Debris flew all over, and some from the roof fell on top of Midas, knocking and pinning him to the ground.

"NO!" he screamed.

Rain started to pour freely into the building as it began slowly turning everything back to normal. Whirl, Bulkhead, Twintwist, and Leadfoot began to return back to their normal color schemes and, with it, their free will.

"It worked!" Wheeljack shouted happily.

"Urg...what happened?" Twintwist asked, rubbing the back of his head.

"Last thing I remember, some short guy was touching me..." Bulkhead muttered.

"What happened to my arm!?" Leadfoot shouted.

"Did I miss a fight?" Whirl asked morosely.

Springer stood up, "Don't worry guys. I'll explain everything." He pointed his sword at Midas, "After we deal with him."

Midas gulped.

The Autobots rounded up Midas and Lit and started cleaning up the mess he'd made of their base. It turns out Zoe wasn't the only human Midas turned to gold; he had a whole collection of gold statues in the back.

While the Autobots got to work helping everyone recover from their goldifying, me, Jason, Leo, and Hedge took the chance to get some rest and food. Leo was a little miffed that we "didn't appreciate his cooking," but he shut up pretty quickly.

After that, it was back to the quest for us. We still had to find and save Hera before the solstice.

Before we left, Springer and Wheeljack wanted to have a few words with us.

"Hey, thanks for the help." Springer said, "I doubt we could have gotten our base back without you guys."

"You're welcome..." I said a bit shyly.

"Before you go, you might wanna see this," Wheeljack said, and he handed a photograph to Jason.

Jason took the picture and looked at it. His eyes widened. The picture was one of a few girls in silver jackets, except for one who was wearing a black leather vest.

"That's Thalia!" Jason remarked.

"We looked through the base records since Midas took over; it seems she visited a few days before you guys," Wheeljack explained.

"Where are they?" Jason asked.

"Based on what we could tell, they were headed west." Springer noted, "Probably still looking for that Percy Jackson guy that Prowl and Bumblebee are helping to look for."

"Guess that's our next destination," Leo said.

"Well, what are you waiting for, Cupcakes!? Let's go!" Hedge shouted, and he started marching off.

Springer laughed. "He sounds like Kup," he said.

"Thanks again," Springer continued. "Oh, and Jason, nice sword fighting techniques. When you get back, you'll have to teach me some of them.".

Jason smiled, "Count on it."

Jason and Leo left to join Coach Hedge, but I stayed behind. "Wait. I need to know something else.".

"What is it?" Springer asked.

I took a breath in. "Earlier, you said you wanted to reach out to Thundercracker; why?"

Springer looked a little confused. "Isn't it obvious? We want to recruit him."

"Why? He's a Decepticon!"

Springer's expression turned somber. "So was I," he said.

My heart stopped, and everything went out of focus. "What?" I asked in a small voice.

"Springer used to be a Decepticon. Along with a few of the other Wreckers." Wheeljack explained.

"But you...left?" I asked.

Springer nodded. "Yeah, I did. Right when Megatron was planning on using the Allspark to power his army, I couldn't let that stand, so me and some friends decided to defect. We ended up forming the Wreckers when we joined the Autobots."

I was quiet for a minute. I didn't know how to take this information in.

Springer kneeled down and brought his face closer to me. "Look, some of the Decepticons aren't bad bots," he said. "They're just confused, or they want to genuinely help Cybertron but don't realize Megatron isn't the right way to do it. That's what me and the Wreckers do sometimes. Reach out to those cons if they show the potential of being turncoats."

"But- But..." I stammered, "All the stories I've heard—the Decepticons, Annabeth—"

"I know." Springer said comfortingly. "It's easier to see the world in black and white. But sometimes it's not that simple. Sometimes it gets really grey."

I was silent again, trying to process what Springer had just told me.

"Hey, beauty queen, are you coming?!"

I looked behind me. Leo and Jason were by the door; Leo was tapping his foot.

"Yeah. I'm coming." I said.

You have no idea how long I've been waiting to write Wheeljack and Leo interacting.

Boy, this chapter was hard to write. Longest one so far too. I hope I managed to keep it entertaining.

As always, thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave a review!