I don't own Transformers or the Riordanverse; they belong to their owners.

Also, sorry for the uninspired chapter title, it was the only thing I could think of.

Chapter 24: Puzzle's Almost Finished.

Two Months Later.

As the Ark-27 hovered in the skies above South Dakato, Ratchet stood in the ground bridge room working on the controls. After finishing the prep work, the ground bridge portal opened up, and out of it stepped a very exhausted Chromia, Hound, and Sunstreaker.

"So how did it go?" Ratchet asked.

Chromia sighed as she handed a datapad to Ratchet. "We got the inscription at the site in Scotland," she explained. "But the Decepticons got their first…"

"We barely managed to get our own copy of the symbols…" Sunstreaker muttered.

"Well, nice work, I suppose," Ratchet muttered.

"So Ratchet?" Hound asked. "Are you almost done decoding these symbols?"

"Honestly Hound? I have no idea." Ratchet replied sadly as he lowered his head.

For the next two hours, Ratchet was multitasking, swapping between studying the symbols and the other part spent doing his usual work on Quickswitch.

He heard the door to his lab open behind him, where Optimus was standing.

"Ratchet?" Optimus greeted.

"Hello Optimus…" Ratchet muttered, not even looking in Optimus's direction.

"Are you okay?" Optimus asked.

"I'm fine." Ratchet insisted.

"You don't look fine."

Ratchet finally turned his head towards his commander. "I said I'm fine."

"Ratchet if you need help-"

"I'M FINE!" Ratchet shouted, slamming his fist on a nearby table, scattering tools everywhere.

Optimus was silent, and the silence hung in the air for a moment.

"Ratchet," Optimus said in a calm but firm voice.

Ratchet sighed. "Okay, I'll admit it, I'm overworked," Ratchet said.

"If need be, I can call in some extra help from Cybertron." Optimus offered.

"No. It's fine. Truthfully, I almost have the coordinates." Ratchet admitted.

"Then what's the problem?"

"I don't know!" Ratchet shouted. "I almost have them, but no matter how many more symbols we acquire, I just can't fill in the rest of the blanks!"

"Hmmm…" Optimus mused. "Maybe it's time to get some help from the whole team again," he suggested.

Ratchet sighed for the second time in that conversation. "Yeah. You're right. Let's get to the briefing room."

An hour later, Ratchet, Optimus, the rest of the Autobots, and the kids had all assembled in the briefing room and had taken their seats.

"Alright Autobots." Ratchet started. "I've got good news and bad news."

"Can you start with the bad news?" Annabeth asked.

"Yeah, bad news first." Thalia backed up.

Ratchet gave a confused look. "It really makes more sense to start with the-"

"But I wanna get the bad stuff out of the way first!" Annabeth protested.

"It'll be cleaner if I start-"

"Just do it, Ratchet." Hot Rod sighed,

"Fine," Ratchet said. "The bad news is I can't complete the coordinates the symbols are trying to spell out. I'm missing something, but I don't know what."

"What's the good news?" Prowl asked.

"I've almost got it finished."

"...Why didn't you start with that?" Thalia asked.

"Because you wanted the bad news first!" Ratchet shouted exasperated.

"Protoforms," muttered Sunstreaker.

"It's okay, Ratchet," Hound said. "We get the point."

"Any idea what the problem is?" Prowl asked, trying to get things back to business.

"No I… It's like there are gaps in the coordinates, and when I try to fill in the blanks with other symbols, the resulting coordinates don't lead anywhere. At least not anywhere Atlantis could be."

"So what are we missing?" Luke asked

No one answered. A heavy silence hung in the air for a while. Everyone just sat there and contemplated all this.

At last, Annabeth raised her hand.

"Yes, Annabeth?" asked Optimus.

"I might have an idea..." Annabeth said a bit nervously.

"What it is?" asked Ratchet.

"Well… Atlantis is a Greek myth, right?" Annabeth pointed out. "So... what if the missing gap is the ancient Greek alphabet?" Maybe the Atlantians used both the symbols on the Allspark and Greek for their writings?"

Ratchet's optics widened. "Of course! That has to be it!" he exclaimed. "I can't believe I didn't consider the possibility. Of course the Atlantians would use letters they were familiar with! A mix of the new and familiar."

"It's worth a try at least," Chromia said.

"Good thinking, Annabeth," Prowl said proudly.

Annabeth smiled.

"Annabeth, I need to know everything you know about ancient Greek writing!" Ratchet said.

Annabeth's smile dropped.

Another heavy silence hung in the air. The Autobots stared at Annabeth, Thalia, and Luke.

"What?" Luke asked, "Why are you looking at us like that?"

"Well, it's just... you kids are the Greek demigods." Brawn pointed out.

"Just because our parents are Ancient Greek gods doesn't mean we automatically know how to read the language," Thalia said.

All the Autobots groaned. Even Optimus gave a silent facepalm.

"Great," Sunstreaker muttered as he drooped his head. "Back to square one."

"Can't you just look up Ancient Greek online?" asked Thalia.

"That would take time to learn like any other language." Ratchet lamented.

Luke glared at Hot Rod. "I thought you said you had a program that translates and adapts languages when we first met."

"Yeah, languages that are still in use on a daily basis." Hot Rod pointed out. "Not old languages no one uses on the regular anymore."

Everyone was silent.

"So. We need an expert in Ancient Greek." Chromia said. "Where are we gonna find one?"

Thalia and Luke were silent; they looked at each other, and then they looked at Annabeth.

Annabeth saw them staring at her and scowled. "No," she said.

"Annabeth, come on," Luke said. "If I had to make sacrifices for the Autobots you have—"

"NO!" Annabeth screamed.

"Whoa, what's wrong?" Brawn asked.

"Her dad," Thalia said. "He's a history buff, right?"

"Yeah, he is. But we're not going to him." Annabeth stated firmly, crossing her arms.

"Annabeth, this is important!" Luke pointed out.

"I don't care; I'm not seeing him again!" Annabeth shouted. Tears were starting to form in her eyes.

Prowl put his fingers on the bridge of his nose and tried to compose himself. "Annabeth?" he asked.

"Yeah," Annabeth said, but she didn't look him in the eye.

"Like Luke said, this is important."

Annabeth hung her head. "Yes," she sighed.

"And you want to be like Luke, right? And me?"

Annabeth didn't respond; she just continued to look at the floor.

"It'll be hard, but you can do this, okay?" Prowl insisted. "We'll be right there. Me, Luke, Thalia, and everyone else."

Annabeth remained quiet but she nodded.

"We won't let him take you back; we're your family now," Luke promised. "It'll be a few hours or so of being uncomfortable, and then we can move on."

Annabeth gave a sad look to her friends. "...Fine," she muttered.

"Nice work," Hound said. "I didn't know you were good at talking to protoforms, Prowl."

"Me either." Prowl shrugged.

He turned to Ratchet. "Ratchet. Get a ground bridge to Virginia open." Prowl ordered. "Chromia, Hot Rod, Hound, you're with me."

Annabeth went back to being quiet. She was not looking forward to this reunion…

Right now, the Nemesis had landed somewhere in South America in order to get some refueling done. The Decepticons were taking some time to lick their wounds after their last encounter with the Autobots.

And get out some frustrations.

In the central control room of the Nemesis, Starscream paced back and forth furiously as Soundwave looked over the latest data they had managed to barely recover from the Autobots.

"Soudwave!" Starscream shouted, finally speaking up. "Have you found out anything?"

"...Not yet." Soundwave responded.

"It's been nearly three orbital cycles, and you still haven't found out the location of this "Atlantis"!?" Starscream shouted.

"These things take time, Starscream." Soundwave pointed out.

"You've had time!" Starscream shot back. "And from where I'm standing, we've been stuck on this mudball with nothing accomplished!"

"Starscream is being a bit hyperbolic,' Megatron replied as he walked into the room to check on things. "But he's not wrong, Soundwave. You've had more than enough time; why the lack of answers?" His voice turned icy cold as he said the last part.

"As I said before, these symbols are only part of the coordinates," Soundwave explained. "We need the other part to understand them fully."

"How are we going to figure out that!?" Starscream lamented. "It could be anything on this spark-forsaken mudball of a planet!"

Soundwave put his finger to his chin thoughtfully. "There might be an option…"

"Continue Soundwave," Megatron stated.

"We may need more information on this human legend; I know of a way to get that information," Soundwave explained.

"Well, why in Primus's name didn't you suggest that earlier!?" Starscream shouted furiously.

"Megatron had strict orders to not intentionally reveal ourselves to the population of this planet," Soundwave answered.

"I'm giving permission now then," Megatron stated. "Who is this expert exactly?"

"The father of the human girl we kidnapped," Soundwave replied. "Frederick Chase…"

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