The following chapter contains scenes of realistic, nonfatal violence against a minor. Viewer discretion is advised.

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

Chapter 43: The Enemy In The Cold.

With the Ark-27 finally fully repaired, it was at last time for the home stretch. Everyone sat down on the ship's bridge as Ratchet looked over the Allspark data that Teletrann-1 was processing.

"Well Ratchet?" asked Nightprowler. "Do you have something?"

"Yes, I think I do." Ratchet said, relief dripping from his voice. "It's a little faded, but Teletrann-1 is picking up the vague vestiges of a trail the Allspark has left."

"So where is it?" asked Luke.

"Readings indicate the Allspark energy leads somewhere in the Russian wilderness," Ratchet reported. "It's the strongest concentration of left-over energy nearby."

"What? Why would someone take it there?" asked Thalia.

"That is what we're going to have to find out," said Optimus. "Sunstreaker. Chart a course." He ordered.

"Yes sir!" Sunstreaker replied. He took his seat in the pilot's chair and hit the switches. The Ark-27 achieved a successful liftoff as it flew back in the air successfully once again. Sunstreaker didn't hesitate in making sure the ship flew straight in the direction of the signal Ratchet had picked up.

Unaware to the other Autobots, inside the vents, something was watching them...

It was several days of flying to get to Russia from the Indian Ocean, and to pass the time, Hound and Luke had decided to try sparing. By now Luke had a lot of experience fighting giant robots and monsters, but keeping his skills sharp never hurt.

In one of the bigger open rooms of the Ark-27, Hound stood a few feet away from Luke. Luke had his sword drawn and stood in a stance that meant he was ready to strike. Hound meanwhile had his rifle out; he had made sure to set it to blanks.

"Ready?" asked Hound.

"Yeah," said Luke.

Hound aimed his rifle and fired. Luke dodged quickly and rolled up to Hound and slashed at his legs, striking them but not enough to cause serious injury.

"You're good." Hound grunted in pain. "What you lack in size you make up for in speed." He reached down to try and pin Luke to the ground, but Luke rolled out of the way again, and Hound's arm slammed into the ground with a clang.

"So, in other words, you're fat?" Luke teased.

Hound laughed. "No.".He said. He then shifted his arm quickly towards Luke and managed to knock him across the room. "I just make up for it with muscle," he answered.

"Yeah?" Luke asked. "Well, I'm not just faster." Luke leaned forward, and in half a second he was behind Hound, and he stabbed his sword into the Autobots left leg. Hound screamed in pain, and he fell to the ground, barely managing to catch himself before he hit the floor.

"OW!" Hound muttered. "That hurt Luke. Like actually hurt."

"Oops…" Luke muttered remorsefully.

Hound stood up shakily "We're just training Luke; you don't have to hit so hard," he pointed out.

"Sorry." Luke shrugged. "I guess I just got a bit into it... I mean, I gotta be merciless if I wanna fight the Decepticons…"

An awkward silence hung in the air for a moment.

"Are you still mad at me for not killing Quake when I had the chance?" asked Hound finally.

Luke didn't answer at first; he finally did with a terse "Yeah."

"I told you, Luke, I'm not an executioner," Hound said simply.

"But you could have stopped him." Luke protested, "You could have gotten your revenge! Quake deserves to die!"

"There's a difference between killing someone in a fight and killing someone when you see the lights in their optics." Hound pointed out.

"That doesn't matter!" Luke said. "You had a chance to strike back against the person who hurt you, and you didn't take it!"

"Quake will get the justice that's coming to him someday," Hound assured.

"Yeah?" asked Luke bitterly. "And what if he doesn't? What if he just keeps doing what he's doing?" He turned away from Hound and faced the wall. "Keeps hurting people; keeps acting in his own selfish way. No one around to hold him accountable; no one around to keep him in line; no one to punish him when he's crossed the line! Even after everything they've done to hurt people, they're still allowed to keep doing what they're doing!" Luke slammed his fists onto the wall and let out a scream of emotional pain.

Hound took note of Luke's use of the word "they." "You're not talking about Quake, are you?" asked Hound.

Luke was quiet.

"Can we just drop it for now?" Hound asked. "I need to get my legs fixed."

Luke took a deep breath in and out, then turned around to see Hound again. "Yeah. We can," he said. "Sorry about that."

"Apology accepted."

After Hound and Luke's talk, Hound went right to Ratchet to repair the backs of his legs. As the doctor worked on Hound's legs, he noticed Hound's expression looked off.

"Something wrong?" Ratchet asked as he used a welding torch to repair the wound Luke had made.

"I'm worried about Luke, Ratchet." Hound answered.

"What makes you say that?" Ratchet asked.

"It's just…He's a good kid, but he gets so... angry sometimes." Hound explained.

"I know what you mean." Ratchet said. "There's a fire inside that protoform."

"I'm worried…" Hound admitted. "If Luke doesn't get his temper under control, I'm worried he might do something he'll never be able to forgive himself–"

"We're here!" called Sunstreaker over the Ark-27's intercom. "We're above the location the energy signature led too!"

Sunstreaker's announcement had sent everyone rushing to the Ark-27's bridge. They all looked around at the surrounding area. It was nothing but snow, pine trees, and large boulders.

"Sunstreaker, there's nothing here!" protested Sideswipe.

"There's gotta be something!" Sunstreaker said. "This is where Ratchet's energy signature thing told us to go!"

"Sunstreaker's right, wherever the Allspark is or was, it was likely hidden somewhere." Ratchet added.

"Then we're just going to have to find it." Optimus said. He turned to face Hound and Nightprowler. "Hound, Nightprowler, you're the terrain experts; you two will go to the surface and see if you can find something."

"Roger that Optimus." Hound said. "We'll call you if we find anything."

Nightprowler smiled. "This will be good," he said. "It's been too long since I've seen snow."

"Mind if we come?" asked Luke. "I think me, Thalia, and Annabeth are getting some cabin fever."

"That's fine, Luke." Optimus said. "It doesn't look like there's anything to dangerous out there right now."

Pretty soon, Hound and Nightprowler had ground bridged down to the surface of the area with the kids. It was a very remote area, and there were no signs of human life anywhere.

"Brrr… it's freezing." Annabeth shivered as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"I told you, you need to wear a leather jacket like me." Thalia teased. "I'm nice and toasty."

"Sh– Shut up," muttered Annabeth.

"Enough guys, it's not that bad. " Luke said

"Yeah, and we need to get to finding... whatever it is we're looking for exactly." Hound said. He deployed a scanner from his wrist and started looking around.

Nightprowler, in turn, transformed into his snow leopard mode and started sniffing around and surveying everything.

After a couple of minutes of walking, Thalia started to get annoyed. "Okay, how long is this gonna take?" she asked.

"Shouldn't be–" Hound stopped talking as the scanner started beeping. "Oh! I got something!" he said.

"What is it?" asked Annabeth.

Nightprowler transformed into his robot mode and put his arm down on the ground near where Hound's scanner started going off. "There's something down here," he said, sensing the earth below him. "A massive underground structure," he stood up "If I had to guess, this is where the Allspark was taken to."

"Where's the entrance?" asked Hound.

"Don't need one." Nightprowler said. He slammed his foot on the ground, and the earth moved away, revealing metal plates.

Hound turned on his wrist comm device. "Optimus, we found something, but we're going to need someone to help us cut through metal."

"Understood Hound." Optimus said back on the Ark-27. "I'll send it right away." After finishing the call, he turned to Prowl. "Prowl, I think Hound is going to need your sword."

Prowl simply nodded and headed for the ground bridge.

Several minutes later, Prowl was cutting through the metal bunker. Even with his sword made of pure cybertronian steel, it was a struggle.

"Primus," he muttered. "What the hell is this thing made of?"

"No idea," said Luke. "Whoever made this bunker must not have wanted—" Luke didn't get to finish his thought before Prowl had finally managed to cut all the way through, The metal fell to the ground with a deafening clang.

"Got it!" announced Prowl.

Everyone that was there looked inside. It was hard to see thanks to the darkness, but it looked like the place Prowl had dug into was some kind of science lab. Weird gadgets and machinery were scattered around the small area.

"Doesn't look like it's big enough for us to fit..." Nightprowler mused.

"Kids, this is where you come in." Hound said. "Can you handle this?"

"No duh." Thalia declared, and she jumped into the bunker. Annabeth following close behind.

"Remember," Prowl said. "If there's any sign of trouble, call us." He said the last part sternly.

"Don't worry." Luke assured. "We got this." and then he jumped into the bunker to join his friends.

Annabeth felt very unnerved as she explored this bunker, whatever it was. The whole building had clearly been abandoned a long time ago, but she could just feel some kind of evil presence here, as if whoever used this bunker still had some sort of lingering affect.

Thalia and Luke were unnerved as well. They looked around. On the walls of the different halls were posters of a logo depicting a red cobra raised and ready to strike.

"Anyone else feel like they're being watched?" Annabeth finally asked.

"Oh? Really? I thought this was just a walk in the park." Thalia commented dryly.

"Anyone have any idea what this bunker was used for?" Luke asked. He looked inside one of the rooms; based on the way it looked, it was armory, because weapons of all shapes and kinds were strewn along the walls and packed in crates.

"Some sort of military operation, I guess." Annabeth theorized.

"Whoa guys, check this out!" Thalia called.

Luke and Annabeth rushed over to where Thalia was. She had found a massive hanger filled with wrecked planes of all shapes and sizes. Some of the planes looked completely different from planes they had seen before.

"A hanger? What does this bunker not have?" Annabeth wondered.

Luke put his finger to his chin in contemplation. "Hmm... I wonder..." he said. He looked around the hanger, eventually seeing a flight control room.

"You got an idea, Luke?" asked Thalia.

"Yeah." Luke said. "Places like this usually keep records of incoming and outgoing flights. Maybe the computer kept making a record even after everyone left here."

"And maybe one of those planes took the Allspark?" Guess Annabeth.

"Exactly," Luke said, snapping his fingers.

"Then let's go!" Thalia said. "Let's get up there!" She rushed over to the control room with the other two close behind.

Hound, Nightprowler, and Prowl waited outside the bunker with growing impatience. They wanted to call Luke and ask for an update, but they couldn't risk tipping off any monsters in the area.

"They sure are taking their time." Nightprowler mused.

"Hey, they haven't let us down yet." Hound pointed out. "Give them all the time they need."

"Hound is right." Prowl agreed. "Annabeth has proven herself a useful asset. They'll come through in the end."

"And a good friend." Hound added.

"Yeah." Prowl replied sheepishly. "That–"

Just then Hound's wristcomm started beeping. "Yeah? Ratchet, what is it?" he asked

"Hound, we just picked up three vehicles heading straight for your location." Ratchet reported.

"Get rid of them," ordered Prowl. "Send them a fake message ordering them to turn back or something."

"I tried." Ratchet said. "But they aren't responding. They must have their radio turned off."

"Any idea what vehicles they are?" Hound asked.

"None. They don't match any vehicles on this planet I've seen." Ratchet said.

"So what do we do?" Nightprowler asked.

"We be careful and try to get them to leave." Hound said. He started projecting his holomatter avatar onto the ground, editing him slightly so he was in a Russian military outfit rather than an American one.

"Do you need some help on the ground?" Ratchet asked.

"We should be good Ratchet." Hound replied. "We'll call if we do."

Hound walked his holomatter avatar over to where the vehicles were approaching. They looked a little odd. The left side of the vehicles contained missile racks, and the right side had a cockpit that could seat two people. They were traveling on skis rather than treads or wheels and were white in color.

The vehicles came to a stop eventually, and several people started walking out. Most of them were dressed in cold white weather gear, but one of them had markings that Hound speculated indicated him as an "officer." There was only one person in the group who wasn't in white, a male dressed in grey camo in a ski mask.

Hound had his avatar walk up to the group and waved them down. "Hey!" she shouted in Russian. "What are you doing in a restricted–"

Hound didn't even get to finish the question when one of them, the guy in grey cameo, raised a rifle and shot Hound's holomatter avatar in the face, causing it to fizzle out.

Hound screamed in pain back where his main body was.

"Hound!? What happened!?" asked Nightprowler in a panic.

"They...they shot me!" Hound said in a state of shock. "They didn't even hesitate; they just shot me!"

Just then they heard footsteps approaching their position.

"Guys!?" asked Nightprowler.

Before Hound or Prowl could react, shots rang out as the men found them and started shooting at them.

"Take cover!" ordered Prowl, and he, Hound, and Nightprowler started moving;' the shots whizzed past their audio receptors as they ran for it some nearby trees. One shot hit Hound in the back of the head. It didn't seriously injury him, but it did hurt, and he grunted in pain as he leaned against the tree.

"What the hell are those things!?" one of the snow troops could ask.

"Who cares?" asked the guy in grey cameo. "Let's roast em. They'll all burn no matter what."

"Roger that Firefly," said one of the men, and he continued his spread of fire.

Prowl turned on his comm device. "Optimus, this is Prowl; we're being engaged by hostile humans. Permission to engage?"

"Permission granted." Optimus replied. "You need backup?"

"I'll let you know." Prowl said as he pulled out his rifle. He pulled away from the tree line and started shooting at the humans. Hound did likewise, and Nightprowler transformed into his snow leopard mode and pounced on one of them.

"Bring in the heavy artillery!" ordered Firefly.

One of the soldiers brought out a rocket launcher and aimed it. Before Prowl could react, he saw a human rocket headed straight for his face…

Back in the bunker, as they worked on the hanger's computer, Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth felt the place shake.

"What was that?" asked Annabeth.

"Trouble," said Thalia nervously. "You got anything, Luke?"

"I think so." Luke said as he kept pouring over the base's records. "Looks like something happened here a couple of decades ago that made everyone just abandon the base."

"Anything on the Allspark?" asked Annabeth.

Luke spent a couple more seconds looking through. "Actualy…I think there is," he said.

"Yeah, what?" asked Thalia excitedly.

Luke typed a bit more on the keyboard and looked further through the records. "Looks like something happened that caused everyone to leave the base in a hurry... They loaded everything they could aboard some planes and left."

"Quick, where did they fly too?" asked Annabeth.

Luke looked through one more time "Records show the flight path of most of the planes stops somewhere in the South Western United States."

"Yeah, but which one has the Allspark?" Thalia asked.

"I don't know!" Luke bemoaned. "They wouldn't exactly call it that in the records."

"What about security cam footage?" suggested Annabeth. "Maybe it got a glimpse of it."

"Good thinking, Annabeth." Luke complimented. He quickly started searching for any hanger security footage on the computer. He found it and clicked on the entries that matched the date of the recorded takeoff.

Most of the footage was just boring day-to-day stuff, but with one big exception. Towards the end, everyone was boarding various planes that looked like bombers in a hurry. After what felt like hours, they finally saw it.

A clip of two soldiers hauling a giant brown cube with cybertronian symbols all over it...

"The Allspark!" exclaimed Thalia.

"Quick download everything so we can give it to the Autobots!" Annabeth said.

"Already on it." Luke said as he inserted the special flash drive the Autobots had given him for this purpose. He started downloading everything he could…

After the download was completed, the three kids raced to their makeshift entranceway, ready to get out of there and share the good news with the Autobots.

They were not prepared for the sight they saw. Nightprowler, Hound, and Prowl were fighting against several humans with guns. Prowl's face was slightly blackened. He must have taken a pretty bad shot.

"What the heck is going on!?" asked Luke.

"No idea!" Hound shouted as he shot at one of the human troops, and it dodged him. "They just came up and attacked us.

Prowl grunted as he swung his sword at one of the other troops, but it dodged as well. It was clear that these weren't ordinary soldiers. They had some kind of special training. "Did you get the information?" he asked.

Before any of the kids could answer, the enemy in the grey cameo, Firefly, turned away from his assault via flamethrower on Nightprowler and saw them.

He picked up a radio and spoke into it. "I think those people got into our old base. They got something from it. You know the drill."

"Understood," said one of the troopers calmly. He turned toward them and aimed his gun.

"LOOK OUT!" shouted Luke. He moved to shield Annabeth with his body.

Thalia thought fast. She cried, "Ageis!" and put the shield in front of them just in time. The bullets bounced off harmlessly.

"Annabeth!" cried Prowl.

"Luke!" Hound called.

"What the hell!?" the solider said. "What is that!?" he winced and staggered back as the piercing glare of Ageis looked upon him.

It was the opening Luke needed. He pulled out his sword and started running at the guy, ready to slice.

"Wait!" cried Thalia.

But Luke didn't listen. He slashed at the trooper, and the sword slice made a huge gash in the man's sleeve. He moved to stab the guy, but he recovered quickly and slammed his rifle into Luke's head.

Luke stagged backward onto the ground. When his vision cleared, he saw the barrel of the rifle looking down at him.

Luke's expression turned to one of horror, and he flinched. The trooper didn't say anything; he just coldly stared down at Luke. In a split second, though, he was consumed by a ray of fire and light that roasted him.

Luke turned and saw Hound standing there with his gun smoking. "You okay?" he asked.

"Ye yeah…I'm fine…" Luke said.

"GAH!" came the distant cry of Nightprowler.

Luke and Hound turned to face their friend and saw he was getting pelted by missiles from the strange vehicles the troops had been driving.

"I think that's our cue to leave." Annabeth said.

Thalia rushed over to Luke. "She's right, Luke, we need to get out of here!" she said.

"Yeah, no kidding!" Luke agreed.

Hound turned on his wrist comm. "Hey Ratchet. The kids got the info. It's time to get out of here," he said.

A few seconds later, the ground bridge opened. "Move!" shouted Prowl as he kicked away one of the troopers.

Luke, Annabeth, and Thalia made a mad dash for the portal and vanished into it. Hound and Prowl followed suite, and a battered and bruised Nightprowler entered last. The portal closed with a VOP behind them.

The mysterious men stared blankly at the place where the portal had been.

"What the hell was up with that?" asked one.

"And what were those things doing in our old base?" Another asked.

"It doesn't matter." Firefly murmured. "Let's get this done. Commander's orders.".

The troopers moved over to the base. Firefly turned to the officer. "Fang, get the charges. It's time to blow this place sky high…."

After getting back onboard the Ark-27, Hound, Prowl, Nightprowler, Luke, Annabeth, and Thalia took a few minutes to catch their breath and heal their wounds.

Ratchet looked over the three Autobots who had been injured in the fight. "Well, good news is, the wounds are nothing serious," he noted. "Still, whoever those humans were, they knew how to fight."

"No kidding, whatever tech they were using is far more advanced than typical human military technology." Prowl said.

Hound looked over at Luke. He was being very quiet.

He walked over to him as calmly as possible. "Luke? You alright?" Hound asked.

"I'm fine…" Luke insisted.

"I mean, it can be pretty harrowing–"

"I said I'm fine!"

Hound sighed. "Luke…"

"So you were fine with killing that guy but not Quake?" Luke asked, trying to change the subject.

"That's different." Hound pointed out. "He was gonna kill you!"

"Yeah? And how many other bots is Quake gonna kill?" Luke asked.

Hound didn't answer.

"Um, guys," interrupted Thalia.

Luke and Hound turned their heads to look at her.

"Maybe it's time we focus on the good news," she suggested.

"Yeah," said Annabeth. "We know where the Allspark is!"

Ratchet nearly dropped his surgical tools from the work he was doing on Prowl. "WHAT!?" he asked.

A few minutes later, everyone gathered in the briefing room to watch as Ratchet analyzed the data that the kids had brought back from the base.

The other Autobots waited impatiently in their seats; they were all feeling the suspense as Ratchet kept looking over the data and not saying anything.

"Well?" asked Sideswipe after a while. "What have you got?"

"Be patient, Sideswipe." ordered Optimus.

"No, it's fine." Ratchet assured. "I'm about done anyway."

"So? What do we have?" Asked Prowl.

"Seems the kids were right," said Ratchet. "According to these flight records, the Allspark was put aboard one of those planes at the base."

"Yeah, yeah, we know that." Hot Rod pointed out. "But where is it now?" he asked.

Ratchet started looking over the data some more. "Looks like most of the planes went down somewhere in..." he paused as he double-checked. "The Grand Canyon."

"The grand canyon?" asked Sunstreaker.

"It's one of the biggest canyons in the world," Hound explained.

"Any idea what brought those planes down?" asked Chromia.

"Does it matter? We finally know where the Allspark is!" Sunstreaker said.

"I'd say it does matter." Chromia pointed out. "A bunch of planes go down somewhere in North America? And it doesn't get widely reported? You'd think that'd be newsworthy."

"We'll worry about it later," said Optimus. "Right now, we know where the Allspark is, or at least the most likely location of it. We're almost there, Autobots; we just have to hold on."

"Yeah," said Hot Rod. "It's almost over."

"I suggest everyone get some rest." Optimus ordered. "We're gonna need it. First thing tomorrow, we're going to the Grand Canyon."

Everyone stood up and saluted. "Yes sir!"

With that, everyone started heading out to get the rest that Optimus had ordered them to. As they all left, Optimus turned to the three kids, who had been quiet throughout the whole briefing.

"I'd like to extend my thanks." Optimus said to them. "You've helped us tremendously during our time here."

"Yeah," agreed the nearby Prowl. "I don't think we could have done this without you."

"We should be the ones thanking you." Luke laughed. "You gave us a place to stay and food."

"And you helped me talk to my dad again." Annabeth added.

"So thanks right back," said Thalia.

"Alright, come on," said Hot Rod. "How's a movie marathon night to celebrate sound?"

"Sounds great to me." Thalia said.

"I'm game." Luke agreed.

"Okay." Annabeth said.

"You coming, Prowl?" asked Hound.

"I don't do movies." Prowl said awkwardly.

"Come on…please…you never watch movies with us..." Annabeth pleaded.

"I…" Prowl sighed. "Fine…just this once though."

Everyone headed out to get the rest they needed…

That night, as everyone either slept or recharged, a tiny robotic bee popped out of the vents and flew towards the Ark-27's main console.

It landed ontop of the console before motioning itself to one of it's input sockets and plugged itself in…

In almost an instance, all the information the Autobots had gathered over the past few weeks during their search started to be downloaded and transmitted...

Onboard the Nemesis. Megatron walked into the communication room, where Soundwave was hard at work receiving and analyzing all the data the Decepticons had acquired on Earth.

"Status report?" Megatron asked.

Soundwave turned to face his leader. "Quicksand's bee drone has just sent us new intel from the Autobots." Soundwave reported. "They have finally located where the Allspark is."

Megatron grinned. At last, this search was about to come to an end...

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